No more student section in collegiate stadiums in the new NIL era

I’m going to say the quiet part out loud:
There is no logical reason anymore for a “student section” in college stadiums, and students should have to purchase tickets just like the general public.

For decades we justified student sections with the idea that college athletics exist for the students, that amateurism and the “student-athlete” model made football an extension of campus life.

But that world is gone. Completely gone.

With NIL, the transfer portal, pay-for-play collectives, and roster bidding wars, we’ve all accepted—whether we admit it or not—that college athletics is now a commercial entertainment product, no different in economic structure than minor-league football with university branding.

If the fiction of “this is about the student body” has been abandoned by everyone involved—coaches, universities, media, and especially the players—then why are we still clinging to the idea that students deserve a huge chunk of free or heavily subsidized seats?

Those seats have actual value.
They are paid for by everybody except the students.
And we keep pretending that the “student atmosphere” is some sacred tradition that justifies the cost.

Meanwhile, NIL collectives are begging fans for donations to pay players multimillion-dollar deals. Universities are raising ticket prices and seat licenses on the very people who fund the sport. But students still get prime seating at a fraction of the cost because of a rationale that no longer exists.

If we’re now openly in a professionalized system:
• Why should students get better seats than paying fans?
• Why should the public subsidize their gameday experience when the entire model is now business-driven?
• Why are we pretending that football revenue exists “for the students” when university administrators themselves admit NIL is the new economic engine?

If college football is a business, treat it like one.

Let students buy tickets on the open market, the same as everyone else. If they want to sit together and create a “student-section atmosphere,” great—buy the seats and sit in the same place. But the era of free or artificially cheap student seats is out of sync with the reality of what college athletics has become.

We can keep the traditions that still make sense.
But let’s stop pretending that the old amateur-model perks apply in the NIL era.

Time to modernize: No more student sections. Open market for all seats.

ChatGPT assisted.