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There is no "semi" in it anymore. "College" football is now nothing more than a pro sports league with college naming rights. I predict the requirement to be enrolled as a student at the school the team is named for will be done away with within the next five years.
Well, count me in as a prospective club member of the anti semi-pros. Save me a seat at your table! (Tangueray martini, up, with a lemon twist if I'm running late)
You are solidly in the majority. I don't think I've chatted in person with a single college sports fan (defined as somebody who is more interested in college sports/teams than pro sports teams) who likes what is happening to college sports. Everybody says they hate it but nobody knows a legal way to stop it or mitigate the damage. I guess we'll just ride this train off the cliff and see what happens.
Students in name only. Class attendance and getting an education are not part of the program.
I think the games will generate strong ratings in the short term, who knows about the long term. There's quite a bit of novelty about the playoffs at this point that may be driving the ratings. But we have to remember that fill⁹ng a stadium is about appealing to die-hards who will actually spend the money and time to go to a game. But getting TV ratings is about appealing to the most casual/disinterested fans. It's definitely an apples/oranges thing. It's kind of like making a movie that appeals to film lovers versus making one that sells the most tickets to American and Chinese teenagers.
Inertia is a powerful force. I don't know many, any actually, people who like the direction college football has gone. Most will continue to do what they have always done, for a while at least. At some point, I think sooner (within the next 10 years) rather than later, fans who actually attend games will tire of the expense of paying the NFL JV players and the lawyers will continue to overplay their hand and file suit after suit until the players are not required to attend any classes or even be enrolled as a student and are nothing more than professional athletes paid by athletic associations with naming rights supplied by colleges. The fans will lose that feeling of connection with the players and the team and their behavior will change. Once the inertia is broken, the fans change their habits and the stadiums aren't even close to full anymore, the interest in the sport as a whole will fall off and tv ratings will fall as well.
If ''college professional football'' loses its emotional alumni attachment completely it opens the door for some enterprising individual to step up with an alternative which would be very attractive to those who prefer the amateur version.
It really doesn't have to be a "viewing" option. Fall is the very best time of year for outdoor activities. People have lots of options of what to do with leisure time in the Fall. If football is a requirement, there are lots of options available for watching football in the Fall. There is HS, NFL and lower division college football if someone simply loves football so much they have to watch it.
This is where the SEC separating itself from the rest of college football comes into play as suggested in the OP article.
I don't see the NFL trying to start a NBA-D League model. As others have said, they aready have it for free in the college system. As to them no longer being student athletes, that has been in name only for quite a while. I remember a player at Clemson scored a 10 on the Wunderlich test, but graduated with like a 3.7 GPA.
