Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science

In his book Beer and Circus, Murray Sperber attempts to uncover the untold story between college sports and the campus party scene. He believes that major college sports are having a crippling effect on undergraduate education. His efforts include personal testimonies, frightening statistics, and suppositions of his own. This book is extremely factual, and brings to the reader's attention the quickly growing problem of beer and circus.

A review of the 1978 movie Animal House, states in one paragraph the core of what is elaborated on in this book:

"Animal House is to me the story of a fraternity house full of friends. They don't have much in common, just drinking beer and drinking some more beer, but isn't that enough?...[People] underrate the importance of Animal House. The movie came out during my freshmen year in college when I joined a fraternity. Of course I can barely remember the three years that followed. It is more than a movie, it is a social statement, a commentary on a generation." (15)

Animal House, according to Mr. Sperber, was one of the factors that drastically changed a generation. This movie, and others that followed it put a positive light on drinking, which would quickly appeal to the minds of young college students especially. This beer and circus mentality took root on college campuses in the 1980's and became a way of life for students during the 1990's. Throughout this twenty-year period, alcohol-brewing companies quickly discovered their number one customers were college students. In 1987 "the nation's beer, wine, and liquor producers spent more than $1.3 billion to advertise their products" (49). Beer advertising by itself totaled $847 million! College students and campuses became a prime target for alcohol marketing.

In 1984, on Thanksgiving Day, the sports world stood still as it watched Doug Flutie, of Boston College, throw a last second Hail Mary to defeat favored Miami. The following year, applications deluged the Admissions Office at BC, and it was all due to one thing, "The Flutie Factor".

"Suddenly, with television's saturation coverage of collegiate sports, small schools could gain national reputations...The applications for admission to Boston College rose 25 percent in the year following Doug Flutie's exploits as quarterback. Athletics success on the small screen would mean increased enrollments." (60)

Increased enrollments meant an increase in students, and an increase in students meant an increase in MONEY. Money truly is the root of all evil, and this idea of beer and circus is a great example. With the newly discovered "Flutie Factor", colleges and universities all over the country began to do whatever it took to bring their athletic teams up to par. It was this mentality, and extremely relaxed admission policies, that began this uproar of beer and circus throughout the nation.

"Colleges [and universities]...are business enterprises competing for a limited clientele: the students. They know that competition for students [especially those able to pay full tuition] is intense; that is why they pump so much money into the production of videos, brochures, viewbooks, catalogs, and all the other promotional material that becomes a blizzard of hard-to-distinguish hype...In fact, very few of this country's colleges and universities are