Can This Campus Be Bought - Jennifer L. Croissant

In the essay Can This Campus Be Bought Jennifer L. Croissant talks more about which companies sponsor University of Arizona and how the university is affected by the sponsor while in the essay Football Is a Sucker's Game Michael Sokolove talks more about how football is sponsored and how the players are affected by football as a whole. Although both of these essays talk about two different subjects; football in the university and the university as a whole, they both relate it back to it being sponsored and affecting who is being sponsored.

In Can This Campus Be Bought Croissant explains how Pepsi and Nike became the sponsors for the University of Arizona causing all other soda and clothing brands to reduce the amount of product they sell and then eventually to not selling on the university campus at all. This caused several smaller brands to go out of business and eventually shut down. With the new brands being the main focus and Nike and Pepsi making sure that no one brought other brands while on the campus they became too much of a distraction because the students then too became focused on brand names. Sometimes when students, like the ones at Harvard University, began to feel too overwhelmed they began to protest. When the students protest they give the school a bad image. Croissant goes on to further explain how Pepsi and Nike are interfering with freedom of expression. For instance, at "Pepsi Day" at a high school a boy was sent home for wearing a shirt that said "Coca Cola". Also, this interferes with freedom of consumption because there is only one product that can be bought therefore there is really no choice. As the essay continues Croissant gives more examples and opinions on how different sponsors go about the contracts they sign with the school and how it affects the students, staff, and university as a whole.

In Football Is a Sucker's Game Sokolove starts by giving the reader a brief description of the University of South Florida, "pancake flats, in desperate need of more trees and shade, grass comes up in stubborn clumps through sandy soil, an it's previous use was a practice bombing range." The university was not put on the best college/university list by Princeton review's Best 345 Colleges. The football coach was put in charge of several serious school problems. When a student came into his office there were clothes thrown all around, he was drinking out a two liter Pepsi bottle, and complained to have been up all night drawing out a punt return for the football game. The university obviously needed money to be put into the education and the campus appearance; however, money was put into the football team. The extra money that was put into football was not given to the university but to the players and coaches personally.

Both of the essays are about sponsors who affect universities and the students in the universities. In both of the essays school was