Someone had to say it. I mean, it's not like a whole lot of folks weren't thinking it, and have been for awhile.
Remember yesterday, when the Blob weighed in on the whole transfer portal/NIL situation? Remember how it suggested it's just the kids doing what the grownups have been doing for a long time in a thoroughly corporate college athletics culture?
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith finally acknowledged as much this week, in so many words. Said maybe FBS college football should just say to hell with it, get a divorce from the NCAA and run its own show with its own set of rules.
To which I say: Damn straight. And it's about time.
I mean, big-ticket college football (and college basketball) have been a charade for long enough. It's time to end the play-acting. Acknowledge the financial imperatives that drive both, make them professional in fact as well as function, and carry on.
It's not as if much will change if that happens. Conferences (and Notre Dame) already cut their own TV deals. Athletic departments are already clients of the apparel companies. Corporate sponsorships are a revenue stream for everything from bowl games to campus athletic -- and now are available to the "student-athletes" themselves.
What's left to do, aside from admitting the obvious?
Now Gene Smith has done that, too. And so why not make it official?
Treat your "student-athletes" like what they are, university employees. Provide schollys for those who wish to pursue an education while they're making money for the corporation, but don't require it. Provide health care, which they're already sort of doing anyway.
"But Mr. Blob," you're saying now. "Won't this take all the romance out of college football and basketball? Won't this just be a semipro version of the NFL and NBA? Where's the sis-boom-bah in that?"
Oh, it'll still be there.
Online. For $29.99, plus tax.
($19.99 for season-ticket holders.)
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