I would like to see in-kind contributions legalized, in addition to stipends, as well as an official professional league where 19 year olds can go and ply their trade of football for money. The NCAA regulation game is a fruitless waste of time.
I'd LOVE to see a new league catering to 18-20 year old high profile prospects. I've mentioned this in depth in this subforum before. You start with 6-8 teams, one in Houston and one in Dallas for sure, let them play each other twice a year. You also allow non-NFL caliber guys to play. I think it'd work, the opporunity to see burgeoning stars play is a legitimate draw. You install high level coaches that prep the kids for the NFL and it's a win-win. Also, as part of the payment plan, offer a tuition program that ensures each kid's tuition is payed for if they remain in the league for 4 years. Like a scholarship so they can go back to school if it doesn't work out. Creating competition is the only way to fix the problem.
I see an 8 team league, each team is a subsidiary of an NFL division (AFC South, NFC East, etc.). Put the teams in cities like San Antonio, Salt Lake, Las Vegas, etc. Have the league run from March to May. The players would be paid relatively handsomely (compared to the NCAA and the mostly worthless degrees they get, it's quite a bit), definitely enough to afford a degree once they're done. If they desire, they can play their entire adult life in this league. I think putting a legitimate semi-pro option on the table would do more to clean up college football than any amount of NCAA regulation ever could.
There's a reason the NFL is trying to squish all their offseason stuff into the front-end of Summer. They're creating a hole in the Spring for a minor league. America is football crazy enough that there's still money left on the table. Expect the NFL to grab it. The people who wouldn't back this at all are the college football powers, because this would be cutting out of their pie moreso than the NFL.
Leagues like that have already been tried multiple times - they regularly fail. UFL, XFL, etc. If people don't want to go to college, they have the CFL and Arena Leagues as options now.
Those leagues, both past and present, are not affiliated with the NFL and are seen moreso as alternatives, rather than methods, to an NFL career. If the NFL is behind the league, I guarantee you it will have enough legitimacy and exposure to succeed. The NFL craps gold, for the moment.
Actually, those leagues aren't alternatives to the NFL. They're flat out consolation prizes to an NFL career. No one goes there for developmental purposes. That's what the NCAA has been filling in as for quite a while now, and the NFL has been happy to let them do it since it was always seen as a money pit. Now NCAA football is big business, whereas before it was just a charity amateur hour. The opportunity for the NFL to have more ownership over its development of players as well as make money in the process is finally here. So I expect them to jump at the opportunity.
College football is great on its own merit. a minor league couldnt survive against to much tradition. people wouldnt shift away because a few better players would choose other options
1) The league would take place in the late winter and Spring. It wouldn't be competing with the NFL and college football as much as it would be riding their coattails. 2) A lot of stud high school prospects would gladly take a decent paycheck to play in a legitimate NFL developmental league over a college. Not to mention all the kids who get kicked out of school or don't qualify for whatever reason. Make no mistake, the NFL brought college football to the forefront, not the other way around. So, while academia and traditions and whatnot will always give NCAA football a built-in fanbase, the real kingmaker here is the NFL.
They have been playing college football since before 1900 way before there was an nfl. the nfl did not make it popular.
College football's historical significance as a sport in this country is only surpassed by mlb. we are talking about a sport that draws over 100k at multiple venues
This. I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume that BE4RD didn't attend a college where football was a big deal. Go ask any fan/alum of a big-time program if they would prefer watching a semi pro league. Being from an SEC school myself (Florida), that would get a big LMFAO.
Whatever you say. College football has long, long since been out-gained in popularity by the NFL. The growth of the NFL has benefited college football a ton, though. College football may haven set the stage/given birth to the NFL, but the NFL has been the one pushing football into the national and world spotlight for the last 30 years. Not the NCAA.
Most alumni of bigtime college football programs would rather watch their team than two supermodels making out, let alone the NFL. This does not change the fact that, overall, the NFL is more popular, and also that there is opportunity for a Spring football league to exist and actually make money.
Being outgained in popularity is not the same as bringing a sport to the forefront. College football has always been extremely popular, and has been so independently of the NFL. It's popularity comes from loyalty to universities - a totally different structure than pro-sports. If the NFL went away tomorrow, it wouldn't impact college football much at all.
I highly doubt that if you take away the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow (i.e. national fame and giant contracts), you're not going to see a dip in popularity at the amateur level. The NFL and NCAA have a vested interest in each other's success. The NFL's skyrocketing popularity has done the NCAA a ton of favors since the birth of the media age, though. Not discounting that popular college players don't create NFL fans out of people, but I can't confidently say the NCAA does the NFL as many favors as vice versa nowdays.
