As you will recall, the discussion over the NFL’s practice of accepting money to sponsor (i.e. select) Public Forum Debate topic areas originated with a post by Jonathan Peele and was extended by a response from NFL Executive Director Scott Wunn. Comments continue to be added to those blog posts.
Discussion also continues beyond this blog. On his own blog, Jonathan Peele responded to Mr. Wunn. Mr. Peele has also posted that he has been removed from the topic selection committee and he believes it is because of his dissent. Stefan Bauschard has weighed in at Planet Debate with some solutions for generating better topics. Scott Phillips over at The 3NR is okay with the NFL accepting topic sponsorship money – for Public Forum Debate.
Not much has been said about previous Public Forum Debate topic sponsorships and no one has said how much money was received for those sponsorships. It is clear that the NFL accepted a $150,000 sponsorship from the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation and the foundation was allowed to select the topic areas for February, March, and April.
Despite a request from the NFL to remove reference to the Rupe Foundation in Peele’s original blog post (which we honored), the NFL is now touting its relationship with the foundation. Each Public Forum Debate qualifier to the NFL National Tournament is designated as a Rupe Scholar and receives a plaque. The NFL has also setup a special Web site to provide topic resources for February, March, and April and recognize the Rupe Scholars.
It is not easy to find much information about the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. Art Rupe appears to have made his money in the recording and oil & gas industries. It should also be noted that in addition to selecting the the public unions topic for April, they also provided a grant to the Cato Institute for a special issue of the Cato Journal:
Dorn in 2010,
James A. Dorn. [Vice President for Academic Affairs, Cato Institute. Editor of the Cato Journal]. “Editor’s Note.” Cato Journal. 30(1). Winter 2010. http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj30n1/ed_note.pdf. Accessed March 12, 2010.
This special issue of the Cato Journal was made possible by a generous grant from the Arthur N. Rupe Foundation. The question posed in this issue — Are Unions Good for America? — has both normative and positive aspects.
Update
Jim Menick at Coachean Life has always weighed-in on the controversy.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
This whole issue has raised an interesting question to me, do people think it’s legitimate to read evidence from the Cato report on this topic? I find it questionable at best that someone could sponsor both a topic and some of the more timely research on that topic.
If the NFL Nationals topic does not have anything to do with Health Care or Israel, or any other interesting even which has been controversial in recent times, then the process is corrupt
Neither of those would be good topics at all.
Health care:
(1) Has been debated to death in PF (NCFLs 09, NFL Nov 09, respectively)
(2) Has substantial Policy overlap – the research burden would be skewed by access to CX files and CX style arguments.
(3) Is too controversial for a fair lay-judge pool. EVERYONE has an opinion on HC, meaning that even on a subconscious level they will be tainted.
Israel:
(1) Is explosively too caustic to touch. How many Israeli judges are going to vote for “Israel imperialist” “Israel violent” “Israel bad for US image”? The core issues are all being debated still in the public sphere in a form too explosive and galvanized to discuss fairly in PF.
(2) Has overlap with February, as anyone that ran AIPAC knows.
Although I agree a good NFL national topic would be nice.
Health Care:
1. NO Health Care resolution has been specific to the one that actually affects the U.S.–The one being debated now
2. CX Files are open to everyone on the Open Evidence project–http://www.debatecoaches.org/openevidence/. This argument is not even unique considering half of the topics debated have CX overlap and it is virtually impossible not to unless there is an obscure topic, like the one we debate at the TOC.
3. There is always a “subconscious” bias. Whether it was on the lobbying topic, Affirmative Action or any other issue. Moreover, obviously Health Care was debated in the past and in my experience, the bias was not as strong as people would think. If you win a round, the vast majority of judges pick you up.
Israel:
1. Is this a real argument? We should base topic off of the assumption that and Israeli person MIGHT judge (considering there are not many Israeli’s) and then question their integrity by insinuating that they could NOT be objective? It is ripped from the headlines and is a VERY important issue. There is a wealth of literature on both sides and it meets every criterion for a good topic
2. Is this a real argument too? This is like saying “we should not debate Cap and Trade because it had overlap with lobbying.” You know how many topics would be precluded going by this logic? So what if it has overlap, if anything that is a good thing because now everyone knows to block out the dumbest arguments first.
The NFL just released its annual report and I find it very interesting. 22% of the NFL revenue is generated from grants/gifts and sponsorships. As a coach of a school with relatively wealthy kids I can tell you that my school would have a hard time dealing with increased school fees or student membership fees. I can’t imagine what the impact would be on a school like Des Moines North where I went to school or small rural schools …. thanks to the NFL for securing funds to help keep the costs manageable for teams. Thanks to the NFL for raising funds to help put money back into the schools and into the hands of the students.
@ Steve Schappaugh
I’m glad we know what it costs for you to forsake your integrity.
I think that at times we have forgotten the pragmatic side of this activity. I coach at a small school in South Dakota and the fees we pay to the NFL and to partake in the NFL District tournament typically take about 1/3 of our entire budget. If these grants are used to help prevent asking for an increased payment from the schools, then they should not be ignored, but they should not be taken blindly.
I think that the council needs to place some boundries on the topic areas. I agree that they should not re-use a topic area until after 4 years have passed to avoid having a student debate about an issue over and over. There should also be a gaurentee that the sponsor can not influence the wording. I believe Scott Wunn when he says that the wording was not influenced, but it should be written in the regulations and rules regarding the event. Finally, why do we not have a rotating topic area guide like in policy. I believe that it must deal with a foreign topic, an economic issue, and domestic policy. I think that should be implementd for PF as well.
Finally, I think that the topics have really improved, but not because of the controlling areas of the sponsor. I think the committee has done a nice job with topic selection and wording.