This is such an important undertaking and I'm glad you're doing the work. Building science-based innovation that works and bringing it to market are very different but necessary things. If you need help making the transition, I'd be happy to lend a hand.

Okay, my theory is that professional athletes become the continuous engine of growth. New athletes become wealthy, they donate to their alma mater until they're tapped out and the cycle continues with the next generation of alumni who turn professional.

There's no equity. In professional sports, the billionaires own the teams. They get their investment back when they sell. That's not the case in college. Donations get eaten with zero financial return. Eventually the billionaires run out of money they want to donate. There will be a new equilibrium.

Economically, there's definitely an arms race with no real upper limit. The supply of talent is relatively limited, the donor pool (at some places) is practically infinite. Maintaining a Georgia or Alabama is going to get very expensive. College football goes the way of super-teams but...

I'm all for transferring wealth from billionaires to college kids and players should be paid. My moral concern is the sway these newly influential, almost always anonymous donors get on campus. Also not a new problem but the leverage is different - you lose your marque quarterback next year.

Yes please! And start showing up. Go support parents groups. Go support churches. Go support refugees. The party should be a service organization turning grassroot needs into policies.

I’m a campus sexual violence researcher and I started thinking about this in the context of traumatized students.

Extensions are horrifically bad accommodations for survivors. They aren’t going to “get better” in a few days. And that means extensions pile up, pushing the survivor farther behind.

So the Saudi wealth fund would be the major creditor to a second major American media company (X being the other)?

We actually never watched the last episode. Still miss the season 1 Spartacus too.

Apparently. Haven't seen it though. Oh! It's a sequel!

Or is the new one?

The Starz show from the aughts? That's so good

Look at Twitter. Its revenue has only covered its costs in 2 quarters in 19 years of operation.
Yet Saudi credit bought it for $40B.

Piketty showed how creditors' wealth accumulates when investment returns exceed growth. This creates the ability to sustain bigger bubbles for longer.