Just Call It What It Is: Pay For Play

Can we all just stop pretending that college football is still amatuer athletics? It has become nothing more than pro football lite. No longer is this a name, image and likeness issue, it is pay for play pure and simple. For many years I thought college football players should get some sort of compensation, after all, they don’t have the time to get a job, so giving them a weekly or monthly stipend just made sense. But the NCAA in its infinite wisdom rejected that idea and instead kept enforcing its ridiculous rules, like punishing players who accepted a meal. So, as you might imagine, the push became harder and harder to compensate athletes and the NIL was born. I fought the idea for a long time, I mean isn’t a 250,000 education enough? But players of all sports should be allowed to make a few bucks using their accomplishments. But then something predictable happened, greed came creeping in. The NIL meant to supplement players has turned into boosters gone wild. Rich alumni hoping to buy their schools a championship. Look, I know this has been going on under the table for many years, but now it’s out in the open and the gloves are off. So called collectives have formed to make sure every player makes thousands of dollars, some of course are pocketing millions. The issue, many schools can’t keep up. UTSA for example will have to compete with schools like SMU for example who just this week announced not one but two collectives totaling over 4 and half million dollars. So I propose we stop calling it college athletics, it is not anymore, let’s call it what it is, pay for play.  The players should form a Union, the schools should hire General Managers, don’t require the players to attend classes, why should they, they are getting paid. In other words, goodbye amatuer athletics, hello pro football! Maybe the NFL should step in, after all, it now has some competition!