Adapt or Die: Systemic issues in College Sports demand fundamental restructuring

Organizations that cling to legacy models – even successful ones – eventually fail.

For years, we made it a Blockbuster night. Now we Netflix and chill. Kodak sold millions of rolls of film every year. Then digital cameras rendered film obsolete.

The same is true in nature. Species that adapt survive. Those that don’t go extinct. Businesses are the same. So is college sports.

“Adapt or die” isn’t just a slogan for a frame on your desk. It’s a mandate. Like it or not, we are all being forced to adapt our views on the sports we’ve loved for generations.  

There are real, systemic issues in college sports that must be addressed over the next three to five years. Fixing them will require fundamental restructuring across the entire ecosystem — conferences, rights holders, the NCAA. (Or whatever replaces the NCAA.)

But despite all the “sky is falling” rhetoric, the product on the field and court has been outstanding. Ratings are climbing, second-screen engagement is surging, and social growth is at record levels. We’re seeing it firsthand on the digital side: On3’s (college-only media company) audience grew by more than 100 percent in 2025, and our social platforms generated six billion-plus views, a 3x year-over-year increase.

You may not like that a college quarterback can go from a scholarship and a few benefits just a few years ago to commanding $4 million–$7 million for a single season today. Or that nearly 10 programs are now spending $40 million-plus on a roster. But the reality is simple: This is not going backward. Honestly, it shouldn’t.

Change is inevitable. That’s true in sports, business, and every aspect of life.

As former Lipscomb basketball coach Don Meyer preached daily, “adapt versus adopt.” Adapting means taking the good and adjusting to it. Adopting means taking everything—good and bad.

Fans will need to adapt. So will the media, coaches, administrators, and everyone involved. Accept the change, adjust, and move forward.

And here’s why.

College sports are the greatest show on earth. We’re biased of course, but the passion and pageantry are unmatched in American sports. In what other athletic endeavor do thousands of people bark in unison or cheer as a live bison runs across a field? College sports are spectacle. They are theater. They allow every grown-up to feel 21 again.

Historically, college athletics has been largely regional, but we’re watching a real-time shift toward national relevance and national matchups. That, along with many other factors, is driving monumental growth.

College football is exploding. College basketball isn’t far behind.

Even with its structural challenges, college football now trails only the NFL—and that’s with two hands tied behind its back. CNBC reported this week that during the first week of January, college football led prediction-market activity, accounting for 32 percent of wagers versus the NFL’s 24 percent.

On the basketball side, Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp reported that men’s college basketball viewership is up 39% year over year, with games across all major rights holders seeing meaningful growth.

The challenges are real, but the sport’s future is unfolding right before our eyes. And demand is not going anywhere. So here’s some short-term advice, and take it for what it’s worth.

1. First and foremost, fix the college football calendar.

The calendar should make sense for the people working in the sport and playing the sport, but it also should make sense for the sport as the wildly popular entertainment product it is. It’s foolish to squeeze the coaching carousel, the most important period of roster building and the biggest games into the same 45-day period.

The NFL doesn’t pack coaching changes, free agency, the draft and the playoffs into the same month. So why should college football?

Here’s the fix:

Eliminate the early National Signing Day and go back to one signing day on the first Wednesday in February.

Move the transfer portal window from January to March.

Cancel spring practice as we now know it and install a series of organized team activities that begin with the first session of summer school for semester-system schools (late May for most) and run at various intervals through the summer.

This would eliminate the need to fire your old coach in October and hire your new coach in late November. Schools could finish their seasons before firing, and they could spend December — and some of January if necessary — carefully selecting the new coach. There would be no need to hire someone in time for an early-December signing day. The new coach would be in place and would have signed a high school recruiting class before the portal opened. The coach would have had time to evaluate the roster and sell his vision to the current team before everyone could hit the portal.

Some coaches have been on board with this plan for a while. But most balked at it when it was suggested last year because they want their team assembled by January. After one January portal cycle, most coaches seem ready for a radical reinvention. Because their lives this past month have sucked.

The spring portal would mimic NFL free agency. Like it or not, player movement is incredibly popular. Fans of every sport love following roster building whether they admit it or not. We see the numbers. Everyone loves the drama of the moves and the hope a new signing brings.

Meanwhile, the OTAs would keep the sport top of mind in a time when it’s usually absent from the national conversation. Plus, teams would be fully assembled and more ready for preseason camp.

2. Instead of a “Commissioner” that has less than no power, build a plan to negotiate and work with the NFL – an official partnership

There is no reason college football and the NFL should be adversaries, but they are when it comes to scheduling games on TV in January.

The leaders of the NFL should love college football. No other professional sport has such a powerful (and free) developmental league that also turns players into legitimate stars before they ever reach the professional league.

The leaders of college football should love the NFL. It’s the place the best players hope to someday reach, and it’s the most popular league in the country. It also happens to be the same sport — just with older players.

College football leaders such as the SEC’s Greg Sankey and the Big Ten’s Tony Petitti need to reach out to NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and say “How can we work together?” Instead of trying to squeeze in College Football Playoff games around the NFL’s schedule, the leagues should be asking the same question: “How do we get the most people watching all of these high-stakes, high-drama games?”

3. Keep Congress out – at least for now.

Ronald Reagan once said the nine most terrifying words in the English language are “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” Government intervention comes with strings attached, and convincing politicians to agree on anything meaningful in these fractured times is a fool’s errand.

The power conferences lit money on fire lobbying for the SCORE Act, which was a pretty naked attempt to wrest power back from the athletes. The leagues were asking for antitrust exemptions even the railroads don’t get, and some of their leaders actually thought the bill had a chance to pass both houses of Congress. It didn’t even come up for a vote in the House of Representatives.

The leaders of college sports need to try to solve their own problems. Creating their own framework — whether through their own rules or through rules collectively bargained with athletes — will create a more lasting and meaningful solution that the stakeholders of these sports can better control. A political solution is only one election cycle away from being radically altered.

4. Don’t dilute the regular season — 24 teams in playoff could do serious damage to the regular season.

This isn’t a plea to go back to the old bowl system or to the BCS or the four-team College Football Playoff. A tournament can be bigger than that, but there is a sweet spot. The perfect NCAA basketball tournament was 64 teams. The schools plan to expand that tournament again from its current 68, but they shouldn’t. They should contract it to 64, because that’s the ideal number.

The sweet spot for a college football tournament is between 12 and 16 teams. Whether using the current FBS lineup (136 teams) or only the power conferences and Notre Dame (67 teams), it’s still the most exclusive tournament in major American sports. Twelve or 14 or 16 keeps the regular season relevant while keeping more fanbases engaged throughout the season than any of the previous systems ever did. And for goodness’ sake, keep and expand home playoff games.

5. And finally, stop complaining about athletes being paid or wishing things would “go back to the old days.”

That’s not happening. College athletes are being paid to play because it’s the right thing to do – and long overdue. The rules that capped their compensation at a scholarship, room and board violated federal law. No other industry was allowed to get away with acting like a cartel for so long.

There is an enormous amount of money flowing into the ecosystem, and athletes deserve a commensurate share of the revenue and benefits. And this isn’t about spare change. It’s real revenue participation. The business of college sports is still in its early innings when it comes to growth, and athlete compensation will grow with it. Accept it.

Remember, adapt or die.