Hmmm, if privately managed, I could support it. However, since football pays for soooo much more than the HS football teams in many areas, other sports, especially Title 9 sports, would suffer at the high school level. My high school was large and we had a big stadium to make money at the game and sell boosters reserved seats. It paid most of the costs for our state championship band to go to the Orange Bowl one year and the Rose bowl the next.

High Schools not in the ``Football as a second religion`` parts of the country would have a very tough time competing with a big HS program just as small colleges (with expections, think Utah last year, Northern IL two years ago, or Fresno St in years gone by) do not regularly compete with the big guys.

A TN friend, EDIG owner, and lurker sent me a note and said UT netted over $50m just from their bowl game and logo gear sales last year (Ms. JHawk contributed for my fav UT stuff)....not to mention the 11 times on national TV and several huge radio contracts. Our EDIG friend guesses close to $200m per year when they are playing for the SEC title, and $150m when not in the top 15.

The big powerhouse schools have a lot of facilities funded by college football. Since the big conferences share the network revenue, schools like Vanderbilt in Nashville have research grants and labs all funded by the TN, GA, FL, AR, Auburn, and AL football programs. Of course, Paul is right about the costs, Vandy charges over $20K a semester. However, of the 50 football schoolarships to those much better-than-average student football athletes, how many could afford a Vanderbilt education without football?

....just my $0.02 worth -- opps, I hope that`s not like saying ``Craps`` while standing at the craps table (a definite Vegas no-no)