Hey there, Steven Dubner. A quick announcement before today's episode on Saturday, October 18th, I will be doing an event as part of the Chicago Humanities Festival to celebrate 20 years of Freakonomics. If you are also in Chicago, I hope you'll come. For tickets, go to Freakonomics.com slash live shows and check out some of the other festival programming.

Thank you much, Lee. And now on to Today's show.

Okay, I have an idea that I'd like to run past you today, and I'm pretty sure you're going to hate it, but that's

okay. I still think it's worth getting into. It is an idea for a sort of business merger.

I'm not suggesting that the U.S. merge with Mexico. We already proposed that, episode 185,

called Should the U.S. merge with Mexico. We even interviewed former Mexican President

Vicente Fox, who was not quite in favor of that idea. I am also not suggesting that Coke

merge with Pepsi or that the Republicans merge with the Democrats, although we've talked about

that before, also in an episode called America's Hidden Duopoly. I am also not talking about

a merger between the world's Christians and Muslims and Jews, although I agreed that would be

a pretty interesting conversation. The merger I am proposing does have a religious feeling to it,

at least for some people. What I'm proposing is that the National Football League

merges with NCAA football. That's the college game. And while we're at it, maybe the National

Basketball Association merges with NCAA basketball. I know this sounds absurd, but I also think

it's worth being an absurdist every once in a while. I mean,

pragmatism doesn't seem to be such a winning strategy these days. And the reality is that

big-time sports in the U.S., despite all their financial successes, have some serious problems.

Our coach was getting a contract extension. All of the rest of the coaches got a Cadillac.

We got a DVD player and a bag of sweatshirts.

You may have heard how college sports are imploding.

That amateurism pillar crumbled, like one of the old Greek temples that couldn't withstand the earthquake.

The professional leagues, meanwhile, are always dreaming of expansion, but they've got some

...