In light of the recent pay to play developments I really hope a group of colleges come together and offer 100% amateur college football. You get into the school just like any other student full stop and you happen to play football no BS. I understand this won't be Al quality football but I think a market still exists for fans of teams that represent and play for a school they attend vs a paid employee putting on a show each week with a logo on a jersey.
I believe DIII does not give scholarships. What is a D3 offer? Scholarships for Division 3 Athletes - StellaPop I believe it is true that a DIII athlete could receive NIL pay, but it is the law no student athlete can be barred from profiting off of their likeness. That said, I would assume pay for play is rather uncommon in DIII.
It is uncommon for two obvious reasons. They don't have the alumni money to fund big money NIL and the quality of player isn't there. Hence why there are HS stadiums bigger than most D3 programs.
If they eased up on their admissions requirements, they definitely have the money floating around to compete for the best athletes and put a watchable product on the field.
The allure of college football is typically alumni, students, their families and the local community cheering on student athletes from their college. Football has lower divisions that are still made up of student athletes, but those schools typically aren't as popular as they don't have enough alumni, students, families and community members. Student athletes don't make as much profit for the business of big time college football. It's been a business for decades, the difference is it's now out in the open. As with many other well known brands people who wish to extract as much value as possible for themselves without concern for the business itself have taken control. It's not all bad. Now that it's professional athletes who don't care about the school and may stop playing mid game because they feel like it we can just watch for entertainment and sentimental value. No need to track "recruiting" as it is just about paying for play so you'll get the players you pay for. No need to put more emotional investment than the players themselves. It's just about watching a game to kill some time now. Maybe that will be better for revenue, who knows. I'll still watch games unless I have something better to do and I'll always be a fan, but as long as players sit out games and have no loyalty I'll similarly just not care as much.
Why even have them attend classes any longer? Somewhat of a farce now that they are settling with players regarding past and future earnings, can pay players and kids are getting hundreds of thousands in NIL deals
Pray for overt greed and a superleague. That's the best way to make this happen. The football factories go one way, the schools who still care about things like the "University" in UF will go the other. Unfortunately, we'll end up in the douchebag (pro) league.
Anything outside the super league will be sub par football. It would be like you are watching the WBA. Sure there will be a Clark type player that will temporarily increase viewership but once many see the overall product is subpar, they will tune out.
I would agree, but college football now has a much greater overall viewership than the NFL and the athletes are considerably inferior.
The mentality that non super league teams are farm leagues or aren’t “playing for anything” is the core of why college football sits where it does today. The “only winning matters” produces: - coaches/conferences who will do anything to win with tens of millions at stake. - players who are not students and have no connection to schools other than fiscal - schools covering felonies and hiring bad actors as coaches - fans who only care about Winning, fire coaches regularly and are more committed to sports than the university. I’d vote for UF to be in the “student” league. What we have now is bread and circuses (and I know it has been this for at least 20-30 years, but now it is so abstracted from any values other than money as to be unwatchable). I shudder to think of 18 year old millionaires behavior on campuses.
Is that true. I don’t know but I was under the impression that only in select areas was college bigger. In Cali, no one cares about college much
