It is difficult to understand the scale and the excitement of college sports in the USA unless you have seen and experienced it yourself. Many top professionals that we admire today on TV have gone through the American college system and prepared for successful professional careers. This is particularly true about the biggest American sports such as basketball, American football and baseball but also more international sports such as tennis, golf, track and field and swimming.
Only in the United States college sports is a big business. Popularity of college sports is felt the moment you land in the USA. Every sports TV channel feature college games and competitions every day. As you walk on campus of a big university, you will notice multimillion-dollar facilities that can be only be matched by the biggest professional stadiums around the world. Loyal support of millions of fans that match popularity of professional teams make the US college environment one of a kind.
Athletics give unique identity to every college and university. Color schemes, mascots are what defines the identity of a school. Tribal mentality expressed by students wearing the team's clothing, attending games and celebrating victories is very characteristic of student populations in each school. Because of the importance placed on athletics, they are typically well taken care of and can often times enjoy extra resources that are dedicated to their success on and off the field. Many schools have educational centers, special cafeterias, athletic recovery and injury prevention facilities just for athletes.
Sport is such an important part of university life that much of the school marketing budgets are dedicated to promoting the school through athletic programs. It is a big business, particularly in bigger schools. Large universities earn a lot of money on the TV rights, licensing, sponsors and tickets in American football and basketball. The money made in these sports is often distributed into other sports that are frequently very well-funded. Even smaller sports that don't bring the income to the school, have significant budgets that allow them to support the athletes at the high level and to make travels across the country for competitions.
The level of competition varies across different divisions and conferences. In the best ones, the level is just below the professional and in fact many coaches who understand this professional requirement, only recruit athletes who have professional aspirations. The gap between collegiate and professional sports has been decreasing over the years and the competitive level has been increasing putting more pressure on the coaches and athletes to perform to the highest standards.
At the same time, the spread between weaker and stronger divisions and conferences is quite large, leaving a lot of room for all sorts of athletes to still experience this phenomenal culture and opportunity to combine education and sports.
There are over 500,000 student athletes in colleges and universities across the USA and over 4 billion dollars are awarded in scholarships every year. Yet, these numbers can be deceiving as just over 50% of athletes receive athletic scholarships and only some of them get full athletic scholarships.
Coaches scout for talents internationally and nationally to fill the team spots with the most talented athletes that can represent and win for the school. In some sports it is not uncommon that the team consists mostly of international athletes. This creates a unique ambiance and environment of athletic, academic and social growth. Because the world is a recruiting scene, the competitiveness of the recruiting process is very high. Yet, because of the number of schools and range of athletic levels represented, with skilled guidance and smart matching, the right fit can be found.
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