Are college athletics as popular anywhere else as they are in the US?

[NDP]

I'm aware that many colleges throughout the world have athletic programs with numerous sports and other related activities for the students. However, are there any countries where the competition between different schools in a specific sport (e.g., football and basketball in the US) is as immensely popular (or more popular) as games or matches at the professional level? For example, in Britain the only sport I hear about in terms of inter-collegiate competition is rowing. Do they have any college soccer?

[amarone]

In most British college sports the players outnumber the spectators.

[St. Anger]

Not sure if they are college teams, but in soccer there are professional sports clubs in Latin America named after universities, that play on their campuses, and are the "official" team of that college. I am not clear if the teams have any students or not.

[Bijou Drains]

Canada has college sports but they are not followed very much. In hockey almost all the best Canadian players play in the junior hockey system which is sort of a minor league to the NHL (but the players don't get paid. ) Junior hockey has a draft to put players on teams and they also allow trades - US based teams don't allow trades. A player can play up to 9 games in the NHL and go back to playing junior hockey the same year.

[RickJay]

Canada has college sports but they are not followed very much. In hockey almost all the best Canadian players play in the junior hockey system which is sort of a minor league to the NHL (but the players don't get paid. )
That's true of the OHL and QMJHL, but the level immediately below the NHL for most Canadians going to the big leagues is actually the AHL, in which players are paid.

[Bijou Drains]

The AHL is for older guys, the junior hockey system is for ages 16-20 which is closer to college age.

[villa]

For example, in Britain the only sport I hear about in terms of inter-collegiate competition is rowing. Do they have any college soccer?

There's inter-college pretty much everything, but as said, no one watches. The Blues match - Oxford v Cambridge in whichever sport has a certain appeal in certain sports to the public at large. The Boat Race is the most watched, I would hazard a guess. But that is really just because it is an excuse to get pissed on the banks of the Thames.

Second most popular used to be (and I assume still is) the rugby. Back when I were a whippersnapper at Oxford, the level of this was incredibly high - I think Oxford one of my years there had 11 full internationals on their team out of 15, including David Kirk, the All Blacks skipper. The match then used to sell out Twickenham, and was shown on live TV. I remember the TV rooms being pretty full watching it when I went elsewhere for my Masters.

A distant third in Blues matches would be the cricket. As cricket has become more professionalized, the standard of blues cricket seems to have fallen, and the status of Oxford and Fenland Poly has fallen with it.

[Hypnagogic Jerk]

Canada has college sports but they are not followed very much.
I believe college football is relatively popular.

The AHL is for older guys, the junior hockey system is for ages 16-20 which is closer to college age.
Plenty of young players play one or two years in the AHL before making the NHL. I'd say those who move directly from junior to the NHL are the exception.

[Duke]

There's inter-college pretty much everything, but as said, no one watches. The Blues match - Oxford v Cambridge in whichever sport has a certain appeal in certain sports to the public at large. The Boat Race is the most watched, I would hazard a guess. But that is really just because it is an excuse to get pissed on the banks of the Thames.

That's really the excuse for anything that happens at Oxford, isn't it?

Other than the Blues matches, the only university matches that I think get any interest are the Combined University XI v (Touring Team) cricket matches. I watched Combined Unis v NZ at The Parks and there was a fair crowd, though obviously this was a result of locals wanting to see the NZ team prior to the Tests. And who can blame them: really, how many opportunities do you have to sit on the boundary rope to see a Test-quality team, even if they are playing against sub-county-level players?

[villa]

That's really the excuse for anything that happens at Oxford, isn't it?


That's a blatant lie. For the rugby we got pissed at Twickenham. For May Morning we got pissed in Oxford.

I remember watching the Aussies play in the Parks, back when it was still just Oxford vs the convicts. We had a couple of cases of Cascade on ice, and David Boon was fielding at long leg just down in front of us. He put back more than a couple of bottles during the game. Happy days.

[KennerTheGreat]

Canada has college sports but they are not followed very much. In hockey almost all the best Canadian players play in the junior hockey system which is sort of a minor league to the NHL (but the players don't get paid. ) Junior hockey has a draft to put players on teams and they also allow trades - US based teams don't allow trades. A player can play up to 9 games in the NHL and go back to playing junior hockey the same year.

I believe players who play in the OHL, WHL and QMJHL (collectively known as Major Junior, or the CHL) do get paid a small stipend, as players who play Major Junior forfeit any NCAA eligibility. Cite (http://www.methockey.com/Rules_Summary.htm)

[Really Not All That Bright]

IME, the American system of colleges-as-minor-leagues is pretty much unique. Schools generally stop being the major engine of top-level sporting participation at about the same time that the law no longer requires kids to attend.

Most future-professionals are already several years into youth academies and the like by the time they're old enough for college.

[RickJay]

I believe college football is relatively popular.

Canadian university football is reasonably popular, but NCAA football's on another level entirely.

[Bijou Drains]

Since Canadian junior hockey has a draft players can be sent anywhere in Canada to play. If they are sent out of town they stay with a local family in the city where they play.

The other thing unique about the US and Canada is our pro sports don't promote and relegate teams for any sport. Another place without relegation is Australia.

BTW, the NCAA is going to admit a Canadian school for the first time, Simon Frasier will be in NCAA division II.

[Cunctator]

In most British college sports the players outnumber the spectators.Ditto for Australia in my experience of university sport.

[RickJay]

BTW, the NCAA is going to admit a Canadian school for the first time, Simon Frasier will be in NCAA division II.
"Fraser."

It's worth noting Simon Fraser was for a very long time a member of the now-forgotten NAIA, an American association of small colleges, but it dried up so they were forced to join the Canadian CIS. that was always their second choice, though, so once the NCAA allowed foreign schools to join, they were in.

Most Canadian schools do not allow athletic scholarships, so, like the Ivy League, they could compete in high level NCAA tournaments but wouldn't have much hope in winning. Simon Fraser's obsession with being in the U.S. system I don't know the history behind, but it seems to be unique to them.

[Ellis Dee]

How unlike the game room to phrase something in a non-confrontational way. I guess that's how it works when questioning Europeans. When you want to question Americans, the phrasing is more along the lines of Do US sports fans ever regret the absence of international competition? (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=540838) The obvious implication being that international competition is better than American national competition, and the lowly Americans just don't know what they're missing with their second-rate sports. So, do Europeans ever regret not having a robust system of college athletics? You guys really don't understand the awesomeness that you're missing out on. Poor neglected Europeans.

[Bijou Drains]

The NAIA is alive and well. It still has members that are small schools.

http://naia.cstv.com/

[ElvisL1ves]

Simon Fraser's obsession with being in the U.S. system I don't know the history behind, but it seems to be unique to them.Various stories I've seen state the reason to be their desire to reduce travel. Most of their new conference opponents will be closer to Vancouver than the old ones, generally involving a bus ride to Alberta or even further for every road game.

The NAIA is still very much around, btw - maybe just their former NAIA conference disbanded?

"Obsession"? :dubious:

[Bijou Drains]

I read somewhere the Univ. of Toronto might join the NCAA - anyone else hear that?

[smiling bandit]

How unlike the game room to phrase something in a non-confrontational way. [snip] You guys really don't understand the awesomeness that you're missing out on. Poor neglected Europeans.

:D

Apt and accurate. Euros are never as gracious as they seem to think. But leaving that aside...

Most nations throughout the world have a very limited university education avilability. Even in Germany or japan, spots in Universities are extremely limited and hard to get into. In Germany, ferinstance, you pretty much get sorted into the college, tradeschool, and nontrade groups in gradeschool. In fact, one reason America has so many foreign collegiates is that we can absorb other countries' overflow.

But it does mean that college-level sports doesn't mean much in most places. There aren't many universities, and those are not the kind of omni-educative facilities we tend to think of here in the states. Developing states particularly tend to have very focused schools, which foten have little or no athletics and only offer a few specific programs.

[amarone]

Apt and accurate. Euros are never as gracious as they seem to think. But leaving that aside... Never? Use that broad brush much?

Most nations throughout the world have a very limited university education avilability. Even in Germany or japan, spots in Universities are extremely limited and hard to get into. In Germany, ferinstance, you pretty much get sorted into the college, tradeschool, and nontrade groups in gradeschool. In fact, one reason America has so many foreign collegiates is that we can absorb other countries' overflow.

But it does mean that college-level sports doesn't mean much in most places. There aren't many universities, and those are not the kind of omni-educative facilities we tend to think of here in the states. Developing states particularly tend to have very focused schools, which foten have little or no athletics and only offer a few specific programs. The number of people attending university is not going to be a significant factor when comparing across developed countries. While Germany is somewhat low, at 23% of the population graduating college, the US is 39% which compares with many other developed countries. The UK is 35%, so that difference is not going to be relevant to why the UK college sport scene is very different. France is 38%, and Canada, Japan and Russia are higher than the US. All statistics from here (http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2007/2007006_4.pdf).

The difference is cultural. In the UK and, by the sound of it, most/all other developed countries, colleges are for academic and practical training; sport is a pastime for the students and not any inherent part of the education system.

The US is able to have a college system for its most popular sport. The rest of the world cannot do that for soccer. The top soccer players almost never go to college - they are snapped up by the clubs long before being able to go to college. How big would US college sport be without football? I suspect "not very".

[TheBoltEater]

The US is able to have a college system for its most popular sport. The rest of the world cannot do that for soccer. The top soccer players almost never go to college - they are snapped up by the clubs long before being able to go to college. How big would US college sport be without football? I suspect "not very".

You're obviously referring to football here, but until fairly recently the most popular sport in America was baseball - and while the best players typically skip college and go straight to the minor leagues, there is college baseball in America. As you surmised, college baseball is far less popular than MLB, and also far less popular than college football or basketball. But it does exist, it does have a pretty loyal following, and it is (at long last) definitely getting more popular lately.

If Europe had followed the American model of college athletics, I think there would be a real place for college soccer. All the best players would still get snapped up young, but that still leaves a large pool of late-bloomers who play at a pretty high level. In fact, there are always a number of Europeans playing for the best soccer programs in America anyway. There might never be an Oxford soccer player starting for Man U or Chelsea, but Accrington Stanley and Notts County need players too, you know. :)

[Diogenes the Cynic]

I think the college sports that are popular in the US are popular because they are the ones that don't have a professional minor league system (i.e. football and basketball). The sports that are popular in other countries tend to have minor league systems for young players (e.g hockey in Canada, soccer everywhere else) so that's where the cream of the talent is located rather than in colleges.

If the US had workable, professional minor/junior league systems for football and basketball, I think their popularity at the college level would drop off precipitously. Nobody cares about college baseball, after all, even though it's the nominal National sport.

[Bijou Drains]

College baseball has a decent following in some areas such as the PAC 10 and SEC. It's nowhere near college FB and hoops. Also a lot more guys in the majors now go through college to get there rather than going from high school straight to the minors.

There is no reason for the NFL and NBA to set up a good minor league system when they have a free one now. The NBA has their "D" league but that's not important to the NBA, top players never play in that league.