What UGA's Jere Morehead said at Lake Oconee. What Iowa said in 1929. And the one structural fact that makes this round of the cycle end faster than any of the others.
The money is clearly there to be able to take the big sports out of college completely for standalone professional leagues that feed into the majors, then they can do whatever they want. Quit the farce and do what should have been done decades ago at this point
The structural objection to your point though is that the money is clearly there because of the university brands. The Athletic put Texas football's brand valuation at $2.38 billion. That number rests on it being Texas. Strip the institutional affiliation and what you've got is a regional sports franchise competing with the NFL and MLS for the same eyeballs in the same market.
Plus the very real Title IX and non-revenue sports situation. The current rev-share architecture is a forced subsidy from football and basketball to women's sports and Olympic sports. A standalone pro league doesn't carry that obligation, so that would do major damage to opportunities for student athletes.
The closer-to-realistic version of what you're describing is what Granof and Luby just argued in Governing this week, what Kentucky has already done with Champions Blue LLC, and what Virginia Tech is voting on June 1: spin off the commercial side into a corporation, keep the university affiliation for brand value, separate the operational structures, and they then feed back into the institution some agreed on percentage to help the non-rev sports.
The money is clearly there to be able to take the big sports out of college completely for standalone professional leagues that feed into the majors, then they can do whatever they want. Quit the farce and do what should have been done decades ago at this point
The structural objection to your point though is that the money is clearly there because of the university brands. The Athletic put Texas football's brand valuation at $2.38 billion. That number rests on it being Texas. Strip the institutional affiliation and what you've got is a regional sports franchise competing with the NFL and MLS for the same eyeballs in the same market.
Plus the very real Title IX and non-revenue sports situation. The current rev-share architecture is a forced subsidy from football and basketball to women's sports and Olympic sports. A standalone pro league doesn't carry that obligation, so that would do major damage to opportunities for student athletes.
The closer-to-realistic version of what you're describing is what Granof and Luby just argued in Governing this week, what Kentucky has already done with Champions Blue LLC, and what Virginia Tech is voting on June 1: spin off the commercial side into a corporation, keep the university affiliation for brand value, separate the operational structures, and they then feed back into the institution some agreed on percentage to help the non-rev sports.