College football hardly looks like the sport we knew and loved five or ten years ago. In many ways, it’s still the greatest sport on the planet, but some nuances are beginning to tear the fabric that makes it so enjoyable.
The game is so pure and passionate, and for years, the amateur model has provided an avenue for student athletes to become certified superstars. Now, with the House vs. NCAA settlement on the horizon, that model is dead and gone, and something more like the NFL is taking over.
The situation with Nico Iamaleava and Tennessee is the perfect example of just how much the game has changed.
Texas Tech mega-booster Cody Campbell published an article with The Federalist that delves into just how broken the current college football model is.
Campbell has a unique insight to the current landscape of things, and in his words, we are witnessing the “destruction of college sports in America.”
After detailing the facts of the divorce between Iamaleava and the Volunteers, Campbell also discussed the latest from Capitol Hill, after Power Four commissioners met last week to lobby for new legislation for college athletics.
“There are many who stand to profit handsomely if the only two revenue-producing college sports, football and men’s basketball, become professional sports leagues – more professional than they are already,” Campbell writes. “The highest-profile players will get huge deals, the agents will get their cut, the coaches’ contracts will continue to balloon, and the conference commissioners will continue to expand their monopolistic empires and their own compensation – at least in the short term. A cynic might assert that, despite showing up in D.C., some greedy individuals don’t want any reform because they can make more money if the players become unionized employees of the universities and the system becomes governed by a collective bargaining agreement.”
“This outcome will inevitably manifest if Congress passes no legislation but also will happen if Congress passes legislation that is poorly constructed, too narrow, or does not substantially change the current system.”
Then, in perhaps his most important statement of the entire article, Campbell talks about the biggest thing that is getting lost in the fold – the student-athletes, and not the one’s who are making headlines.
“Lost in all of this are the 500,000+ student athletes who are not receiving multi-million dollar deals and have no voice at the table,” he said. “They are our female athletes, our Olympic sport athletes, and our colleges and communities that are not fortunate enough to afford the high price to compete. If we completely professionalize college  sports, further extract and further concentrate the excess revenue provided by football and men’s basketball, college athletics will disappear for the majority of the Americans who have enjoyed and benefited from it for generations.”
If Congress can produce legislation that provides real guidelines and structure to the NIL and transfer portal, then there’s hope for the future. However, a failure to produce such a result could be devastating for the entire landscape.
It’s a waiting game for the vast majority of those involved in college athletics, and unfortunately, it looks like things might only get more complicated in the months ahead.
