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Originally Posted by DeadMoneyWalking
I think you are underestimating how many students don't realize that people go to football games until they move into the dorms.
That's kind of my point though. I think the administration is drastically underestimating the knock on effects.
Academic prestige is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Cal is the #1 public school in the country, so lots of smart people choose to go there instead of other schools, so then it's filled with smart people, so the cycle repeats.
But UCLA is right behind Cal and very similar in a lot of ways. Now, say you give one school a decided advantage over the other - say, you cancel the architecture school at Cal or something. Now anybody who is very interested in architecture will go to UCLA instead of Cal, and you'll lose some % of the best students, but there won't be strong knock on effects.
But if you get rid of sports, that's a big deal because it will have knock on effects, because the sports fans are the nucleus of a lot of the social life on campus as well as a lot of the alumni donations. You get rid of sports, the "smart kids who also really like sports" who are probably currently 70/30 going to Cal will now 90/10 go to UCLA. Then, when you lose those kids, the social life at Cal will deteriorate, and it will be somewhat less fun. After a a few iterations of this, the social scenes will start to decay, and eventually it will become a self fulfilling prophecy and it'll start to become more like UCSD - a good school that isn't fun.
Then, a few years down the line, every kid in California who is going to go to public school, UCLA will be their first choice and Cal will be (at best) second, and then Cal's yield against UCLA and all the other UC's will go down, and play this forward long enough, Cal will drop in the rankings, and that will also become cyclical.
It's not like, a problem for society or anything, the same kids are all going to go to college and have a good experience, just a different one. Sucks for Cal fans and alumni, but a boon for other schools.
It's just so dumb that the administration doesn't see this coming and let this bomb go off in their face.
Hopefully this whole time line is long enough that the inevitable (interdependent CFB super league) happens first, and hopefully Cal can do what it takes to survive and stay relevant until then.