quote:
who is "college football"? that's just a vague phrase. there's nothing or nobody that can do that. unionizing is the only way to reign it in but that's not college football doing anything.

Exactly. What entity is being implied here to enforce this? The NCAA? They've lost just about every court case they've been involved in. Legally, the courts have deemed them pretty toothless. That's why it we see the chaos we do now. They basically just thew up their hands and said "frick it. Everything goes." They didn't want to, it was just becoming expensive to fight all the things they had no chance of winning anyway.

The NCAA could dissolve and another intuition take its place, but they'd just be facing the exact same issue. There will have to be some sort of collective bargaining agreement between a players' union and the schools/NCAA that the courts agree to allow and give exemption status to anti-trust laws like the major professional sports leagues have the protection of. But the potential players' union will have to be built, the infrastructure of it created, the headquarters bought or built, employees hired, leadership built and put in different places, the organization set up, healthcare and insurance contracts bid on and agreed to, etc...And none of that will be free. Or cheap.

Professional players pay a nice portion of their salary to union fees. And the infrastructure for those is already set up. And it's gonna significantly cut into the profits of the 1st group of players who have to set it up. What's their incentive to doing that right now when every advantage is currently theirs? What could possibly ever incentivize them? It's not like they'll be in college for that long anyway. Do they care about the overall good of the sport of college football when they'll be done with it in 3-4 years. Do they care about the players who will the next "thems" in 1,2, 3, 4, 25, 50 years? Do they care if college football is even around after they're done with it?

So I agree that unionizing is the only way to reign it in. I just don't see the incentive--right now, it may become more apparent later--for the players to unionize. They would have to sacrifice too much that they will likely not see any significant benefits from long-term. I mean, they could get health insurance for life. But that would cost a whole lot, especially since, again, they're only gonna be in college for 3-5 years and most of them have convinced themselves they're going to have NFL careers that will give them those life-long benefits anyway, only much better.

I just don't see a solution that incentivizes the players to change what has become the status quo. They have the leverage. If the schools, conferences, collectives, NCAA, whoever's on the other side try to take it back by implementing rules, the players could sue for collusion. I'm not a lawyer by any means, but I think it may take Congress to pass constitutional laws that are upheld by courts. People scoff at Congress for getting involved in these things--"Don't they have anything better to do?" Perhaps fair, but they get involved in a lot less than a multi-billion dollar industry that affects the economies of cities, states, and the universities they reside in. If college football folds, so will a lot of universities who rely on football not just for the revenue, but their university brands. It will affect exposure, attendance, tuition fees, research grants, etc...I talked to a guy from Utah today. Asked where he went to school. Said Leehigh or something. School had changed names, but was around that area. Said it had higher enrollment than both BYU and Utah. But nobody's ever heard of it because they don't have a football team. You don't think that affects what they can charge for tuition, the professors they can attract, the schools of study they can offer, the grants they get, the quality of student they have to take. He told me flat out that they basically have to just accept anybody. Can't afford to turn anybody away right now.

What would happen to the schools we love if football was no longer the face of the university? Would they wither and die? Would our degrees become less valuable as the schools can't afford to be highly accredited. Just so many unintended consequences to all this. Some didn't care about any of them, just "frick it, let them all get paid as long as my school pays enough to compete." Others, like a lot of us in here, could easily some of the very inevitable unintended consequences. But very few could predict them all. Who knows. We'll see eventually, though, I guess.