In today's college football world Penn State will become a 2nd tier player. There will be a dozen, 1st tier, "pro style" teams, and neither the Penn State administration, nor its alums, have the desire to join the madness. I applaud that position. Perhaps the focus will then turn to being a 1st tier academic institution.
I think that will be the logical end point, given the current trends. I find it interesting that tOSU is making the claim, since this means the athletes that they happened to recruit are getting in total the most NIL $$$ from businesses and organizations completely removed from OSU, and that these $$$ are for the use of the specific individuals' NIL. After all presently no school is allowed to be involved in the funding or directing the funding to attend or perform.
The only thing that could modify this situation is how the +100 D1 schools react to 5-6 of their brethren being more competitive, due to $$$ NIL for their athletes. I am not sure many of us have a feel for how the schools as as whole see this. That means the students, faculty, Boards/Presidents/administration, alumni and even people in the regions who have interest in the athletic programs of the schools. Could a small group of schools just be able to do whatever they want and create a very small Tier 1 - say 6-8 schools, while the other +100 schools tried to compete with them? In other words, can a small minority completely change the landscape of all the sports and competition? Would the majority rise up and just ban this small minority from any interaction on all fronts - every sport, academic research, academic transfers, etc. In other words, the majority could just treat them like lepers and ban them from all university relationships. After all, the power is with the majority. Of course to get that type of attack on the small minority would take orchestration that may be hard to achieve - NCAA would normally do that, but they seem headed to shut down.
If the majority can't stop a small minority, then maybe what happens is the vast majority go full pro. That means no real rules, and every sport stands on its own money. The universities could totally separate from any athletic dept, and each sport becomes self-funding with their athletes generating NIL$ plus even being paid direct from the club. Players would not even need to be students. The sports that cannot survive just devolve to friendly club teams funded by the players. For most schools this would get rid of the financial drain of the sports programs, and the students would just buy tickets like any fan would. This is the ultimate Darwinian end, and also not clear what would stop this. Once the schools exit the sports, there is no Title 9 problem, as everyone is equal = that is nobody gets anything from the school. The "pro sports" teams would have no Title 9 liability, as they are not associated with the schools. If they use the logo, they have to license the usage. If you can accept 10 schools are a Tier 1 pro group, then why not 100 teams?
I am assuming that this will never become a matter for the US congress to deal with, and am not sure they could deal with it right now anyhow. Not sure the court system is going to deal with it, so it will be whether the schools want to actually address this or not. The problem they have is that the organization they setup for sports is the NCAA, and most of us are assuming they are on their death bed. Do they even exist in 10 years, or at least exist as a compliance and enforcement organization?
