A College Sports Message Board Insult Grows

This week’s Club Sportico essay looks at how the rapid professionalization of college sports is changing the way fans—and more notably, coaches—talk trash.

NCAA programs big and small existed for decades without a major profit motive. Now, however, money is front and center for everyone involved in the endeavor. Players are being paid directly by their schools, ADs are looking for alternative sources of revenue and recruits are launching bidding wars. Money and success are publicly tied, now more than ever.

On message boards, “poverty program” has become a popular term for insulting one’s rivals. Coaches are also bickering about money, a topic that would have felt out of place 10 years ago.

Here is an excerpt of that essay :

“In the past few years I’ve written quite a bit about Florida State’s varied attempts to increase athletics revenue, which includes private equity talks and a $327 million bond offering. Every time we publish, my mentions are flooded by people—often with usernames like @michael_gator or with a Twitter banner featuring a Miami Hurricanes jacket—calling the Seminoles a poverty program.

The rhetoric is now finding its way into official press conferences. Earlier this week Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy previewed his upcoming game against Oregon by highlighting the matchup’s money imbalance. Oklahoma State spent ‘around $7 million’ on players in the last three years, Gundy said, before claiming the Ducks spent $40 million in the last 12 months. He then said Oregon should schedule teams with similar resources.

Oregon coach Dan Lanning fired back immediately. ‘We spend to win,’ he told reporters. ‘Some people save to have an excuse for why they don’t.’ Poverty program.“

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