College Football

Good. This is going to go down as potentially the least enjoyable era of college football, but it's probably the most important to actually get D1 CFB up to the depressingly low moral standards of the National Football League.

It's all a big cultural and economic mess, but I think eventually, we will end up with a de facto collective bargaining setup -- whether that's laws, competitive necessities, a trade organization, or a formal league -- that gets around the clear abuse of the schools' market position (propped up by the NFL's 3-year rule and roster limits). A collectively bargained solution would probably still involve legal fictions and quaint absurdities like enrolling the players as students, but honestly that's fine by me. These are obviously "non traditional" students even by the kindest measure, and they may actually do better academically with access to scholarships or tuition waivers that can be a negotiated benefit and potentially continue past their "competitive usefulness".

The non-revenue sports could be a sticking point, because schools are bastards and will probably want to cut them if the football money is halved or whatever. I don't know what to do about it exactly, but the marginal cost of an athletic scholarship itself is nowhere near the sticker price, yet for the vast majority of student athletes it will be at or above the market rate for their athletic services. If the new system simply retains the programs and scholarships, then investment in facilities and coaching is less concerning. I will admit to a certain ambivalence about heavy investment in intercollegiate athletics where the alumni and other stakeholders don't seem overly concerned about the results. Our system of running so many top-end developmental sporting tiers through our universities is kludgy and antiquated and, frankly, kind of stupid.