The college football community is well aware of the way that the NCAA has become a way for them to make money while fighting everyone else's ability to do the same. They made immense profits off of video games and video footage of players, while not allowing these players to even make a dime until they left college. People can say that these men and women are amateurs, but that should never mean that they are cash cows for greedy executives who throw them to the wolves as soon as they are hurt.
Value to Colleges
One of the things that happens when a college even has a moderately successful team is that they have a larger audience to show off the school to. While this sometimes also means that there is money headed to academics, usually it just means more money spent on coaches and facilities. Most of the college programs people watch are state schools, which means the academics are usually hampered by what money the state is willing to send, and the money made from tuition. This affects the student athletes and athletes the same, which means they have employers wondering how well they will fit in because they may not have as much knowledge as they need.
Historical Perspective
Most people are not aware of how the NCAA was founded. Walter Camp, who sycophants praise for being the father of modern college football, was in charge of a rules committee that was in power. He refused to change rules that would literally save the lives of football players because it would change the winning ways of his Yale football team. Around a dozen players died a year. There was also the situation where he and coaches like Alonzo Stagg were able to control what colleges were making money. All this changed when Harvard and others joined together to destroy the empires that had been set up.
In the beginning, the NCAA saved lives and changed the way that colleges dealt with some of the more financial matters to make it far more fair. The problem was, Lord Acton's saying about power corrupting came true. In 1984, the lawsuit NCAA v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma was a case that said that the NCAA violated two antitrust laws. The Supreme Court ruled against the NCAA and those revenues went more toward the schools. That was the start of seeing that the organization had started down the greedy path.
NIL and Modern Football
People have been decrying the era of NIL, but I have to ask why. These kids were being milked for all their potential, while they lost everything if they were injured. Their likeness was put into video games that made billions, yet they were not allowed any compensation. As a matter of fact, the big winner was the NCAA, a supposedly not for profit organization. If the athlete sold their autograph, there were sanctions, yet a free autograph could be sold by the person who received it.
One of the hilarious attacks that the NCAA is doing now is going after the University of Tennessee because local business people found a way to create an organized collective that benefited the athletes. The NCAA barely made any rules, barely had a grasp on what their greed had caused, and they attacked a school that had locals not affiliated with the school to find a way to make the NIL situation coherent. UT has no connection to the collective other than having the athletes and national prominence to make them worth money. Oh, and the NCAA was not making money off the athletes in a way they wanted.
The NCAA needs to modernize its outlook and needs to lose the greed that ruled it for decades. You want to make an impact on the life of the athletes, go back to making sure safety concerns are addressed, not make rules to help bring more revenue from ads. Because of the modern media, people can make money in so many ways, that limiting athletes this chance is idiotic. These are people who can make money without resorting to OnlyFans or other degrading ways. The NCAA needs to wake up and smell the modern roses.
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