Sports in the
United States
2014 Georgia Debate Institutes
Jeffrey Miller, Marist School
The Two Choices for September/October
Interscholastic Sports Topic
Public Subsidies Topic
• Resolved: On balance, students in
grades 6-12 in the United States
benefit when their schools offer
interscholastic sports.
• Resolved: On balance, public
subsidies for professional athletic
organizations in the United States
benefit their local communities.
“Benefit” and its effect on Framework
• Cost Benefit Analysis
• Remember goals of the resolution
• Benefiting students 6-12
• Benefiting local communities
Choice # 1
Resolved: On
balance, students
in grades 6-12 in
the United States
benefit when their
schools offer
interscholastic
sports.
At first sight…
• Pro has a massive ground advantage, since most schools have sports –
which probably isn’t just a coincidence
• Point of conflict in the resolution may lie in grades 6-8
• Why is this a topic choice? School budgets always consider eliminating (non-revenue)
sports programs to save money.
• Focus of the debate is on the students, not school systems
• However, school systems could still find their way into the topic.
• A return of the phrase “on balance” – why?
• Teach new kids the purpose of the phrase
• A lot of research will be limited to few school districts (not many meta analyses in)
Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.
Definitions
• “Interscholastic Sports”
• An interscholastic sport is defined as athletic competition between multiple academic
institutions (or schools). It could also be seen as a team sport played between
schools, or representative of different schools, especially secondary schools:
• Interscholastic Sports: Any school sponsored sporting event that holds competition
(North Carolina Department of Public Instruction Curriculum and School Reform
Services, 2005).
• Richmond: “Interscholastic Athletics are team-based organized sports activities
sponsored by the district which occur outside the school day and do not receive
academic credit toward promotion and/or graduation.”
Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.
Core Pro Ground on the Topic
• Educational Benefits
• Athletes have higher graduation rates (Bailey, 2006)
• Athletes have higher GPA’s than non athletes (Broh, 2002)
• “The athletic role enhances the academic role” – increases college changes (Snyder,
1990)
• Labor Market Benefits
• Athletes get paid more – 32% in NLSY study (Barron, Ewing, Waddell 2000)
• Average Household paid 8k more (Stempel, 2006)
Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.
Core Pro Ground on the Topic, continued
• Civic Engagement Benefits
• Increases political participation (Braddock & Dawson 2007)
• Increases involvement in youth sports later in life (Perks 2007)
• Health Benefits
• “the positive effects of athletic participation for student-athletes: self discipline, selfconfidence, lower dropout rates, and smaller percentages of drug and alcohol abuse.”
(Sitkowski, 2008)
Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.
Core Con Ground on the Topic
• Academic Performance
• Academics is Better. “Although students did not perform better academically during
the semester they were enrolled in physical education, the results indicate that they
did not show a decrease in academic achievement compared with students who
received an extra hour of academic instruction per day” (Coe et al 2006)
• Purpose of Sports. “Instead of feeling compelled to relate the traditional ideals of
athletics, coaches now feel compelled to produce results above all else.” (Davis,
2009)
• Repeating Grades. “More children are repeating a grade in school to gain an edge in
athletics. Experts worry about fairness and skewed priorities” (Wharton, 2004)
• Changing Grades. “Grier discovered some coaches in that school were consistently
fielding ineligible athletes on teams that then went on to compete in statewide
tournaments. Coaches had asked teachers to change students‟ grades and
attendance records to cover up the infractions.” (Beem, 2006)
Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.
Core Con Ground on the Topic, continued
• Interscholastic Sports are selective
• Budget Tradeoffs
• Basic Skills: “Inverse relationships between presented budgets for athletics and proficiency scores,
implying that shifting the budget toward athletics might detract from the educational goal of
providing students with basic skills.” (Ward, 2008)
• Facilities Improvements. “schools compete in earnest to produce the best facility and therefore utilize
the facility as a tool to recruit premier athletes in surrounding counties” (Obel-Omia, 2007)
• No Causation
• Thomas found athletics participation did not improve academic achievement for certain minorities.
Thomas summarized the findings of a 1980 study conducted by the Women’s Sports Foundation
which tracked 30,000 high school sophomores for a six-year period. The racial groups studied were
Caucasian, African American and Hispanic students from rural, urban, and suburban backgrounds.
(Thomas, 1989)
• Ableism
Resolved: On balance, students in grades 6-12 in the United States benefit when their schools offer interscholastic sports.
Choice # 2
Resolved: On
balance, public
subsidies for
professional
athletic
organizations in
the United States
benefit their local
communities.
Why this topic
area?
“Since 2000, 28 new major
league stadiums have been
built costing over $9 billion
dollars. More than half, over $5
billion, of the costs of the new
stadiums were funded using
public dollars. Even more, two
thirds of teams in the five
major sporting leagues are
playing in stadiums built or
significantly renovated since
1990—with 28% built or
significantly renovated since
2000. So despite the
precarious results, the success
rate at which owners get
subsidized for their requests is
astounding.”
Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities
Definitions
• “public subsidies”
• “A public subsidy is a provision of economic value by the City or the RDA to a private
entity for purposes beneficial to the public, such as the operation of a business or
event within San Jose, but for which the City or RDA do not directly or indirectly
receive goods or services in return for that expenditure.” (Brownstein, 2007)
• “professional athletic organizations”
• The Big Four (MLB, NHL, NFL, NBA)
• Other: AFL, Minor League Baseball, WNBA, MLS, USLL, NLL, WPS,
• “local communities”
Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities
Core PRO Ground on the Topic
• Economic Benefits
• “by generating increased spending on lodging, meals, and other travel and entertainment that takes place
outside the stadium or arena, and will not accrue to the team or building owners.” (Groothuis, 2004)
• Since direct expenditures result in indirect expenditures, the direct expenditures are said to “multiply”
through the economy. Economists attempt to quantify this effect by calculating a “multiplier.” For a given
level of direct expenditures, higher multipliers indicate higher levels of economic impact.”
• Television exposure can lead to more tourism and business.
• Keynesian Economics Good
• Psychological Income
• “The justification of subsidies tends to be based on the concept of ‘psychological income,’ that is on the
effects of identification or stimulation and on the feelings created within the community. Thus subsidies are
justified by their internal rather than their external effects.” (Szymanski, 2005)
• “Sports teams provide a tangible focus for building community consciousness and social bonding. They are
an important part of the collective experience of urban dwellers since they tie them together regardless of
race, gender or economic standing. They are one of the few vehicles available for developing a sense of
community.” (Crompton, 2004)
Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities
Core PRO Ground on the Topic, continued
• Community Image and Visibility
• “Professional sports increase community visibility given the magnitude of media
coverage that is showered upon major sports franchises. When a major sports
franchise is mentioned throughout the print, television, and electronic media, the host
city is typically given positive exposure.” (Shwester)
• “Major league teams have become a critical talisman of the status of cities and
metropolitan areas because of the popularity and visibility of professional sports. Art
museums, symphony orchestras, theaters, and zoos are all marks of major cities, as
are libraries and universities, leading law firms and banks, and great commercial and
industrial corporations, but big league teams are seen by many as more easily and
widely recognized symbols of a place’s importance.” (Danielson, 2007)
Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities
Core PRO Ground on the Topic, continued
• How do you quantify intangible
benefits?
• Contingent valuation method (CVM) is
a stated preference technique that is
used to quantify the value of public
goods and services. (Johnson,
Groothuis, and Whitehead, 2001)
• Study Results: “Metropolitan area
residents were willing to pay between
$0.83 and $2.30 per year in higher
taxes to retain the Penguins, thereby
suggesting that the franchise offers
some type of public good benefit.”
Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities
Core CON Ground on the Topic
• Economic Diversion Theory
• “these jobs are really not new, but rather are a result of other projects that did not occur because
funding went to the stadium instead.” (Jensen, 2000)
• Low Skilled Jobs
• “The type of work is generally non-technical, and requires little or no skill, unless you consider the
ability to hit a fan with a bag of peanuts from several rows away or the ability to balance a tray full of
beer while scaling a flight of stairs, a skill.”
• Tax Revenues
• Public financing is tax exempt: “it creates lost tax revenues that under normal circumstances would
be assessed and paid. To illustrate the effect, consider the following: for a stadium completely
financed with tax-exempt bonds, costing $225 million, and built today, it is estimated that the lost
federal tax revenues will total $75 million over the life of the bonds.” (Jensen, 2000)
• Low Income Areas
• When a new stadium is financed with public dollars, the lower-income citizens of a host city are
nonetheless the first to have their wallets raided (Cagan and deMause 1998)
Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities
Core CON Ground on the Topic, continued
• Economic Studies
• "In no instance did a positive, significant correlation surface among stadiums,
professional sports, and city income as a fraction of regional income.” (Baade, 2000)
• “Increased export sales result from attracting net new inflows of spending from
outside the area. This regional increase in exports might occur if, for example, people
from another region decide to attend a baseball game in the area, rather than go to
their local movie theater. If, on the other hand, people from another region spend
money at an area stadium rather than at a movie theater or restaurant near the
stadium, the stadium is not increasing export sales-it is simply shifting them.” (Baade,
2000)
• “Many public subsidies do little to promote economic equity, and rather than
correcting for market failure, they induce distortions in economic decisions and
behavior; such programs may justifiably be scaled back or terminated when they
come under increased scrutiny” (Treist, 2009)
Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities
Core CON Ground on the Topic, continued.
Public subsidies creates 20 new taxes (Greenburg, 1994)
•
Alcohol and or tobacco Tax
•
Surplus Property Tax
•
General Retail Sales Tax
•
Property Transfer Tax
•
Special District Taxation
•
Property Donation
•
Tax Increment Financing
•
Property Sale
•
Pari-mutuel Tax
•
Redirected Tax from Stadium
•
Insurance Premium Tax
•
Special Lottery
•
Utility Tax;
•
Eating & Drinking Establishments, Food & Beverage Sales Tax
•
Permit & Licensing Tax
•
Ticket Surcharge
•
Property Tax
•
Parking Surcharge
•
Mineral Tax;
•
Room Tax.
Resolved: On balance, public subsidies for professional athletic organizations in the United States benefit their local communities
Which topic do you prefer?
Where do we go from here?
Recommendations
• Topic 1 Analysis by Mark Allseits at the Pine View Debate Camp:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VZzLy05E1c
• Research both topics more.
• Talk to your friends from other schools (camps) about the topics