Monday, October 11, 2004
pigs(kin)
The night before their weekly game, ACC football players are checked into a local hotel. At a significant cost to their college or university. North Carolina, for example, this year budgeted $96,000 to book 57 hotel rooms before each of the school’s 6 home games.Coaches say the team-imposed quarantines ease any worries they may have about their players cutting loose as non-scholarship college students do on Friday nights. And with athletics budgets padded with money from football television contracts and conference bowl-game revenue, it's a luxury that Division I-A football programs don't mind assuming.
Fair enough. But why don’t college basketball players benefit from the same perk?
Financially, in-town hotel bed checks aren't an option for college basketball teams, which play three times as many home games as their football counterparts.
Not exactly. Sure, basketball clubs play three times as many home games. But they also have a third the number of players, coaches and staff.
