This season the University of Texas at Austin’s football team is scheduled or has already played against such athletic powerhouses as the University of Louisiana-Monroe (59-20), the University of Texas-El Paso (64-7), and the University of Central Florida (on November 7).
Most other top-flight teams are also scheduled against Division I schools that they are likely to wallop. Why? Very simple — a team must win six games to qualify for a post-season game; and scheduling a few teams that are nearly certain to be beaten makes the post-season minimum requirement easily attainable.
We ease ourselves into qualifying for the post-season; athletic programs at the smaller schools make substantial sums of money playing against a top-level team; and their fans probably enjoy seeing the big-name team play against their men. How about UT fans? Seeing their team destroy another, while not desirable in every game, probably makes UT fans happy if it occurs a few times each season. This schedule may represent a Pareto improvement with every agent better off.
(Hat tip: M.F.)
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I think you’re wrong on the UT motivation.
Texas has averaged over 11 wins per year the last
four years; they don’t need cupcakes to get to six wins.
They schedule cupcakes to go undefeated.
IS every agent better off? What if one of these players on one of these smaller, clearly overmatched teams, gets hurt going against players they have no business being on the same field as? What happens to the competitive landscape of sports if teams pay inferior opponents to come in and lose, all in the name of building up a house-of-cards resume? What happens to UT’s standing at the end of the season, when they are revealed to be the paper-tiger they are? The Big 12 has struggled in Bowls in recent years, precisely because of situations like this, with teams beating up on inferior opponents, artificially inflating their standing, and ultimately failing when matched up against better opponents. NO ONE ultimately wins in this scenario, except for the big wigs at the schools themselves, who either pocket the money they receive for playing one of the big boys or who reap the accolades (and money) of boosters at big program who want to see blowouts. Read Gregg Easterbrook’s TMQ column on ESPN for just why this practice is so abhorent.
This doesn’t even get into the issues of sportsmanship, but I don’t know that Freakonomists even care about something as silly as that.
It makes everyone better off except the players, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/10/19/091019fa_fact_gladwell?currentPage=all . Some of them will get scholarships and thus free education, a small percentage of them might make a career out of it, but most of them will not be compensated at all for the entertainment they provide.
Disagree completely.
What about a ‘Black Swan’ occurrence such as a Michigan vs. Appalachian State upset?
Only when the outcome is impossible to make both agents worse off is there truly a pareto improvement.
I don’t think so. They don’t schedule these games to win, they schedule them so that they can play an extra home game without having to schedule a return trip. This guarantees the school millions in additional revenue. Higher quality schools (schools with better football programs) also seek this additional revenue to support their program, so they generally refuse scheduling these games without a return game at home. What is left is a “race to the bottom” where good teams schedule the weakest opponents by guaranteeing those schools a nice payday and ensuring an extra home game each season. I don’t think the postseason has anything to do with it.
Actually, Texas wanted to schedule Wisconsin for this season, but neither team could agree on a return date soon enough.
In fact, for a team like Texas, Ohio State, Florida, or USC, a post-season birth isn’t the goal: it’s a BCS game, preferably a National Championship shot. Last year, one of the big reasons Oklahoma went to the BCS title game instead of Texas, the team they beat, was because Oklahoma’s out-of-conference opponents included Big East champion Cincinnati and a TCU squad that only lost to two teams.
Interesting note: the home games against the UTEP’s and Central Floridas of the world are getting more expensive. $500,000 is on the low end now, and I’ve heard over a million dollar payout for a whuppin.
If the agents are considered the schools, then both are better off. UT gets a win and gets closer to a large bowl game payout. The smaller school gets $500k or so, which is enough to fund their program for the year. Many of the smaller schools would not have football without all these payouts and possibly not even other sports too.
Another factor may be ease of scheduling. For teams that UT doesn’t pay, they generally arrange several games “home and home” that go out a few years. An example of this is WVU and Michigan State this year signed a deal for a “home and home” in 2014 and 2015. Small schools may be more flexible in their schedules when they get a $500k paycheck.
Check out “Bowls, Polls, and Tattered Souls: Tackling the Chaos and Controversy that Reign Over College Football” by Stewart Mandel for more info on this topic.
And hence another reason why I dislike College football. The whole “set your own schedule” just leads to a lot of teams trying this bs. The PAC10 has the only reasonable rules (you have to play everyone in the conference every year)