Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Commercial sports as a university function. Strange bedfellows -- Priorities -- The bigness of "big time" -- The uses of big-time college sports. Consumer good, mass obsession -- Commercial enterprise -- Institution builder -- Beacon for campus culture -- Reckoning. Ends and means -- Prospects for reform.

For almost a century, big-time college sport has been a wildly popular but consistently problematic part of American higher education. The challenges it poses to traditional academic values have been recognized from the start, but they have grown more ominous in recent decades, as cable television has become ubiquitous, commercial opportunities have proliferated and athletic budgets have ballooned. Drawing on new research findings, this book takes a fresh look at the role of commercial sports in American universities. It shows that, rather than being the inconsequential student activity that universities often imply that it is, big-time sport has become a core function of the universities that engage in it. For this reason, the book takes this function seriously and presents evidence necessary for a constructive perspective about its value. Although big-time sport surely creates worrying conflicts in values, it also brings with it some surprising positive consequences.