In Reply to: Paying athletes too costly for Big Ten? Trinity, Division III are stil posted by mh on October 17, 2025 at 09:20:00
Of course, 100% of sports mediots, and 90% of their readership, have that attitude. What? Does someone actually think football is not the be-all and end-all of their silly old university?
I, for one, would be perfectly fine if the B1G, or UCLA by itself (outside of the B1G), went to a Division III mode. Spare me the whining about athletes needing to be compensated. No one has ever suggested that athletes be compelled to choose a Division III school! Only the football industry (the NFL, effectively) compels athletes to go to college at all.
And spare me the whining about the obscene profits that might go to the universities. Who, in any other context, would argue against money for universities? The "obscene" aspect of the present system is that the profits never go to the real university, they go to the Athletic Department. There's no law against the profits, if there be profits, being shared among the universities -- the REAL universities, the professors and the teaching and research facilities. But of course, no sports mediot would ever contemplate such a reform.
Yeah, the talent level would take a hit. So what. It's still football -- enormously fun to watch. Are fans boycotting minor league ("college") football because the skills on display are inferior to the NFL? Or March Madness vis-s-vis the NBA? Some fans might appreciate being vaguely familiar with more than half of the players before the mid-point of the season.
Today's "college" football is forced prostitution, with the victims being America's more self-respecting universities.