I’m a better person than you.

Or at least, if you’re an arts student, my undergrad degree counts for more than yours. When I compare the successes of classmates, I see my fellow science or technology friends have landed well-paying jobs in finance or consultancy whereas the more socially oriented are stuck working for NGOs. Based purely on future monetary success, art degrees are a waste of your time, your parents’ money and perhaps even your university’s resources.

I hasten to add, before I get a landslide of abuse, that I don’t actually agree with the above statement, but it’s the best way I could sum up in an academic context my interpretation of what is becoming an easy target for abuse by Daily columnists: the Capital One Cup. I do see some of the arguments behind an alternative to the Directors’ Cup; since Stanford basically has the largest college athletics program in the country, it is almost a shoo-in.

But be careful what you wish for.

Patriotic friends of mine stand by the argument that America is a classless society, and while the raw statistics contradict this assertion, I have to admit that the underlying intention is good. The statement “all men are created equal” from the Declaration of Independence is not just a memorable phrase but should be a guiding principle behind any system of government.

The Capital One Cup’s version of this quote is “every championship counts,” but though the words might sound a little similar, the raw ideology is very different. Glossing over the fact that the statement is not true—some NCAA championships actually don’t count—it reminds me much more of a quote from George Orwell’s satirical book about the Russian Revolution, “Animal Farm”: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

It’s not quite as catchy, but in the interest of honesty, perhaps the Capital One Cup’s organizers should try: “Most championships count, though some count more than others.”The changes in the ranking system from the Directors’ Cup might seem relatively benign, but before throwing your support behind this new award, it is worth considering what its long-term impact could be. Universities are generally ideological bubbles where equality rules far more than it does in the outside world. You study what you study because of raw interest rather than monetary greed, and students from all backgrounds and subjects mix freely as equals. College athletes, regardless of the future job prospects in their chosen discipline, should be treated the same.

This utopia isn’t perfect, because there isn’t an endless supply of resources and money, and so not all sports can receive either varsity status or NCAA recognition. But the intention is good.

Or at least it was. There have always been motives for concentrating solely on the big sports—not least, the TV revenue they bring in—but the Capital One Cup turns the screw even further on the little sports. The Cardinal might be well-advised to drop the six men’s and six women’s varsity teams absent from the cup’s rankings in favor of creating new teams to better suit this competition, or perhaps to simply pour the savings into the football program. Maybe that is what other schools have been doing for years, shirking sporting diversity in search of success in just one big-money discipline, and maybe this explains why Stanford traditionally has struggled to compete at the very top of the football hierarchy.

Even smaller sports actually included in the Capital One Cup might be at risk. Men’s lacrosse is worth twice as much as golf, and so it would make competitive sense to sacrifice the latter in order to make space for a new varsity team of the former. Can you imagine if that had happened a few years ago? Whatever you think of either his sport or his private life, it is hard not to feel some kind of respect for the achievements of Tiger Woods and a little bit of pride that one of history’s most iconic sportsmen went to Stanford.

Smaller colleges whose athletics programs are limited to a football or basketball program may find a significant advantage in this new ranking system, but the larger and more varied athletics departments will almost certainly lose out. Many student-athletes may find their sports disappearing before their very eyes as attention shifts to the more important, i.e. higher point-scoring, disciplines. The breadth of the college sporting world will surely narrow.

On its website, the NCAA claims that it was formed “to protect student-athletes,” but through its affiliation with this new championship—Capital One is an official “Corporate Champion” of the NCAA—it seems to be doing the very opposite.

Tom Taylor is more equal than you. Disagree at tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu.