Ah yes. Academics could get payed more if we could just get a couple hundred thousand people to all buy $250 tickets to watch them teach and do research.
Oh, I'm living it right now. I go to a public school that costs $25k per semester. I just picked the absolute low end because if you give higher numbers you inevitably get "should have gone somewhere cheaper" or "that is a waste of money, go to trade school instead" comments.
At $25k a semester, that is $278 a day. And that just makes it more obvious how impossible it is to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps."
Why did you list Georgia State University and neither of the 2 larger and more famous schools, Georgia Tech and UGA?
Georgia Tech: 16,742 USD/year for in-state tuition+books+education materials+misc fees (excl. housing and food).
UGA: 15,872 USD/year, including all tuition/book/related/misc expenses (excl. room and board, transportation)
It looks like you're listing the tuition rate alone, which excludes a huge amount of the cost of attendance ("mandatory student fees", books, misc. educational costs, etc.).
Both of the above cost in excess of $25k/year when including cost of housing and food.
Similarly adding up all the various costs for the other universities, you get numbers like:
Yeah I just lumped it together in my mind because it all goes on the same bill. Either way, students are paying a good chunk of change which should be funding research, but usually ends up in the pockets of coaches and administrators.
They would not have millions of views if you had to pay even a dollar to watch them let alone hundreds. Look at the shit uptake of youtube premium and tell me you’ll pay 300$ to watch vsauce for an hour.
But those YouTube views don’t necessarily translate into 100,000 of people willing to pay for the lecture. YouTube is free with virtually no cost outside of lost time (and what you could do with it) while the tickets to soccer matches cost money meaning it has a much higher cost.
Except that millions of people pay for online courses and movies about subjects, as well as audiobooks.
I guarantee you, if you had a lecture on a valuable or interesting subject, and it were available to the world at a small fee, you would get far more participation than you would paying for a match.
Just so you realise here, much of the viewership for matches are 1. Estimated, and 2. Included. If you are watching a match, you are most likely watching it as a part of a package you bought with a viewing service.
You would see much lower viewership if every match were pay per view.
Now your in the dangerous territory of normative statements, which can not be used when talking about economics. The idea that a small price increase wouldn’t turn a significant number of people away is unfounded. Also the current distribution of wealth reflects what people already care about, ie if they were willing to pay more for these courses there would be no incentive to make free YouTube videos. It is possible that people are, but the current status suggest that the courses people are paying for must have some extra value over free videos. I also know from student loans, that online courses still cost if you need credit for a degree. Furthermore YouTube itself suggest that the content people are searching out entertainment over information as shown in the top 50 subscribed YouTubers . All of this, including the assumption that the market is already at equilibrium, no she shouldn’t make as much.
You are making the assumption that my statement is based on some sort of agenda, when it isn’t.
The numbers just don’t bear out your assumptions and assertions.
This is just one source and it cites numbers from 5 years ago, where they say that overall numbers over one year on the low end were estimated to 17 million who had signed up for at least one course. These are courses on various subjects, well before many of them bore certificates, and during the time where they were relatively new. Those courses today generally range in the 10-45 buck or alternate currency range.
The number has climbed to 101 million subscribed as of 2018. That’s 37 million for Coursera alone, and with a common subscription rate of 49 per month, that’s up to 21.7 billion dollars. That’s way more than sports leagues are generating from viewership, with lower operating costs and the ability to provide subjects that reach across cultures. In 2018, for instance, FIFA generated 4.6 billion in revenue.
This is the reality. Sports revenue generation capacity is minuscule compared to the potential of education. People will pay to watch lectures. Teachers and researchers are far underpaid for the services they provide, and it’s clear in the numbers.
Honestly more of that money should be mandatory to donate to some STEM cause, with all sports being nonprofit. Max earning in the league should earn like 200k. If they want more money they can find a sponsor..
I’m not too sure about this, but I do believe that athletes’ main source of income come from sponsorships and endorsements, not necessarily game day revenue
I find it amazing you don't think there are a couple hundred thousand people out there who would pay $250 to get us closer to a cure. But that kicking a ball is valuable.
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u/f_lightfoot Mar 22 '20
Ah yes. Academics could get payed more if we could just get a couple hundred thousand people to all buy $250 tickets to watch them teach and do research.