Rintaro Sasaki is a famous home run hitter in high school baseball. After graduating from Hanamaki Higashi High School in Iwate, he decided to study abroad at Stanford University. The university has given him exceptionally good conditions for this study abroad. With this scholarship, he doesn’t need a part-time job and has plenty of time to study. In the United States, college sports are not just about winning or losing, but are based on the premise that academics are prioritized. University athletes are expected to not only succeed in competition, but also succeed in business after graduation. So, this time, we focused on American student sports and looked at the current situation.
Student sports are popular in the United States. Television broadcasting rights for college football and basketball have skyrocketed to a level unthinkable in Japan. The NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and universities with top athletes are generating revenues comparable to professionals. For example, the total revenue of MLB in 2019 was $10.7 billion. The NCAA’s total revenue in 2019 was $15.8 billion, exceeding MLB. On the other hand, the players seemed to be dissatisfied. The players are making huge profits. In this sense, the amount of over $80,000 a year that Sasaki was awarded seems to be no surprise in the NCAA. In the United States, scholarships that do not require repayment are commonplace.
To continue competing in the NCAA, you are thrown into an environment that you have no choice but to study continuously every day. In a sense, it is essential to develop the habit of studying continuously every day in order to continue competing. Even if it is not as prestigious as Stanford University, if it is a first division school in the NCAA NCAA, the environment is in place to support athletes. The environment of the first division school of the NCAA is abundant, including training facilities and academic support. It has been pointed out that it is difficult to balance studying with studying, but it is said that the difficulty is more likely to turn into a positive. There are individual differences in athletes who perform well in competitions. But generally, they have excellent concentration. Athletes who perform well have the strength of will to always complete the daily tasks they set for themselves. The NCAA lifestyle and support system has the advantage of drawing out other abilities that players may not have been able to demonstrate when they were devoted to their sport. It can be said that the NCAA lifestyle provides the perfect environment for bringing out other abilities in players. I hope that Japanese university sports will also have this kind of environment.
