this was probably the main reason the so called football players (record 4/5) got involved.
from another article:
Philip Bump writes that the impact of the football team’s threatened boycott shows that the athletic department has a lot of control over universities — even teams with 4-5 records:
That’s the fourth point:
There’s huge long-term economic power in college football programs. The Tigers aren’t having a great season, at 4-5 after four straight losses. They’re still in contention for one of college football’s countless bowl games, assuming they close the season strong. If they
did make a bowl, the school would get some amount of money as a bonus. Last year, schools that played in even the least-known games
got six-figure payouts.
There are any number of other economic pipelines that are put at risk. The University of Michigan — a much bigger program than Missouri’s — signed
a deal with Nike worth $11 million a year for 15 years. That’s just to allow Nike to outfit their teams in games. Missouri
gets $2.2 million — plus bonuses if those Nike uniforms make it to the Bowl Championship Series (which they will not) featuring the very top teams in the country.
Those television agreements that are mentioned in the BYU contract are another thing altogether. Missouri is in the SEC Conference, which means they earn $15.6 million per year
just to be seen on the SEC Network on cable. By the 2018 season, the Mercury News’s Jon Wilner estimated in March, the school will get $35.6 million in overall television revenue — and that’s a conservative estimate.
How much the school would lose if the team boycotted even one game is hard to say. But swinging back to politics, it’s easy to see where the leverage lies.
It’s also a good reason for universities to rethink their commitment to big-money sports. I like college football as much as the next fan, but it’s impossible to see this as anything else but a corruption of the core mission of higher education. If football drives these kinds of outcomes, what kind of academic outcomes does it drive for these schools as well? Do other administrators pursue go-along-to-get-along policies to keep teams and boosters happy?
Maybe the larger lesson of this story is this: Let the NFL fund its own minor leagues, and let universities get back to education.
from the article:
University of Missouri president resigns after football team threatens boycott « Hot Air