The unmatched amount of money poured into the school athletic method has made activities courses breeding grounds for corruption whereas diverting the most important assets from the educational project of universities. Like funds in Washington politics, the impression obtained via a posh set of self-interested actors heavily undermines circulation towards reform whereas trapping universities in a cycle of escalating pageant. Longtime recreation sociologist Howard L. Nixon II techniques the problem from the viewpoint of school presidents—how they're seduced through status or careworn via economics into development courses that circulate faculties towards a advertisement version of athletics.

Nixon situates his research within the context of what he calls "the intercollegiate golden triangle," a strong social community of athletic, media, and personal company advertisement pursuits. This community lures presidents and different college leaders into an athletic palms race with gives you of institutional improvements, elevated enrollments, greater scholar morale, enhanced alumni loyalty, extra monetary contributions, and better prestige.

These can provide can cloud the judgment of school presidents and governing forums, entangling them in an athletic capture that restricts their impression. not able to manage spending, inequalities, and deviance inside of commercialized athletic courses, universities are ensnared in monetary, political, and social tasks which are tough to sustain—or get away. Nixon clarifies the constitution of this seize, describes how larger schooling associations fall into it, and explores what it capability for associations and presidents stuck in it.

This well timed research additionally has relevance to the debates in regards to the position of the NCAA and ongoing reform efforts in university activities. The Athletic Trap could be of curiosity to school presidents, board individuals, and directors, game sociologists keen on the stability of energy among lecturers and athletics, and somebody else with a significant curiosity in university activities and its future.