SPORT
The Difference Between University and College Sport
From British eyes, the American system, where your identity gets wrapped up with university sport, can seem very alien. However, when you consider the roots of professional sports in the country, particularly the two where this dynamic is most at play, this all begins to make much more sense.
The most popular sports at university level, American football and basketball, were both invented and initially adopted by universities in the 20th century. The big professional leagues growing out of these sports had limitations to start off with: The NBA and NFL took a long time to grow south and west, with some areas, that are long standing hotbeds of these sports, only getting professional teams in the 1980s or 1990s if ever. The hotbeds for university sport tend to be the areas that were historically underserved for various reasons, whether that be distance from league heartlands, population density or other financial factors. Whether you have an NFL or NBA franchise with a recent maximum team limit of around 32, is dependent on a number of factors away from the pitch. Whether you have a significant university American football or basketball team isn’t limited in the same way, with 128 in the top division of the former and even more in the latter.
“The closest similarity in many ways for the American system in this country isn’t university sport, but rather the lower leagues” The closest similarity in many ways for the American system in this country isn’t university sport, but rather the lower leagues. As sport in this country grew out of organising games with long histories or offshoots from certain schools, it meant that associations of clubs were
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created that pre-dated league structures. Many of the older clubs in football were something for cricket clubs to do in winter or workers creating a team, such as Arsenal and Manchester United. A pyramid structure grew with the sport meaning that regions (of a much smaller country) couldn’t be excluded in the way that the American south and west were with the NFL and NBA. The sport grew into leagues in a more organic fashion. Rather than the South Eastern Conference providing much of the highest level of a game in a significant chunk of the country, areas like the midlands or the southwest can be represented in the middle tiers of the Football League. Beyond the mechanics though, there is also how this works from an emotional perspective. By having a far greater number of universities to choose from at every level, and the greater financial investment, where you choose to go is a significant statement. When your university of choice is a grander statement and there are differences in the sporting culture more broadly, it is only natural for the bond you create with your sport to be greater. When you grew up watching the Tigers or Bulldogs, with the nearest professional side hundreds of miles away in a different state, they are your team more than any from a major professional league.
Callum McPhail
Graphic & Page Design by Natasha Phang-Lee
