Outlandish facilities for University Football (American) in the U.S.

MarylandMUFan

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Went down a rabbit hole of this youtube page where this guy gets tours of the facilities at college sports (football, baseball etc...).
All of them are outlandish but football takes the cake. University of Alabama spent $288 million on just their facility (not the stadium mind you, just locker room and training):

I don't think any NFL or pro sports facilities rival these in the entire world. Even Arkansas is nicer than any NFL team. It's remarkable.
 

HTG

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That’s the stuff you can build as a professional sports team that doesn’t have to pay its players. Completely broken system.
 

MarylandMUFan

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Isn’t there something daft like college football coaches make about 20 million dollars a year.
Not quite but it's still nuts (top coaches are in the 10 million a year range):https://sportsnaut.com/highest-paid-college-football-coaches/

What's funny is that they are still considered state employees (for those at public schools) so they are generally the highest paid employees in each state:
https://kiiky.com/wealth/highest-paid-state-employees-in-the-usa/
 

Dave Smith

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The thing I find most mental is how big High School and College players are followed. Then there is the fact that the largest NFL stadium is only 15th highest in capacity when you include college teams.
 

cyberman

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Do NFL players not come through that system? If so then wouldn’t those be the NFL academies?
 

Carolina Red

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The thing I find most mental is how big High School and College players are followed. Then there is the fact that the largest NFL stadium is only 15th highest in capacity when you include college teams.
A lot of that is down to NFL stadiums having real seats instead of bench seating (Lambeau at 82,000 with bench seating being the big exception). Another part of that is down to the NFL’s local TV blackout rules that incentivize smaller seating capacities to ensure sellouts.
 

11101

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The thing I find most mental is how big High School and College players are followed. Then there is the fact that the largest NFL stadium is only 15th highest in capacity when you include college teams.
Same. Its mind boggling that so many people watch kids playing school sport, and to a level that must be way below the professionals. It's like having our academy selling out OT every week.

I occasionally flick through US cable channels and there is everything from 14 year olds playing softball to college volleyball on there. Who watches this stuff?
 

Carolina Red

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Same. Its mind boggling that so many people watch kids playing school sport, and to a level that must be way below the professionals. It's like having our academy selling out OT every week.

I occasionally flick through US cable channels and there is everything from 14 year olds playing softball to college volleyball on there. Who watches this stuff?
The stadium at the high school I played for held more people, at the time, than actually lived in the town, and we still played games that were standing room only. Only difference now is that the town has grown a lot in the last decade.
 

RedTiger

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Same. Its mind boggling that so many people watch kids playing school sport, and to a level that must be way below the professionals. It's like having our academy selling out OT every week.

I occasionally flick through US cable channels and there is everything from 14 year olds playing softball to college volleyball on there. Who watches this stuff?
I read something about this a few years ago. Apparently due to the franchise model of pro sports and the propensity to move franchises to different cities, people follow college teams religiously because they give a sense of local affiliation. They basically get their tribalistic fandom through college teams.