Letters to the Editor: College football has long been ‘just a business’ — but it’s fairer for athletes now

To the editor: I must respectfully challenge the recent opinion piece claiming that “name and likeness” (NIL) agreements and modern college football economics have corrupted the sport.

The author overlooks the fact that college football has been commercialized for decades. The National Collegiate Athletic Assn. (NCAA), while operating as a nonprofit, generated $1.3 billion in revenue in the 2022-23 fiscal year, with $945 million from media rights alone. High-profile coaches were paid millions years before NIL policies existed.

The influx of money into college sports is not new; what has changed is that athletes are now allowed to benefit from the wealth they help create.

For decades, athletes generated massive revenue for universities, coaches and the NCAA while receiving minimal compensation for their efforts. Allowing these athletes to earn from their contributions is not a betrayal of values — it’s a step toward fairness in an already professionalized system.

If reforms are needed, they should address the NCAA’s role in maintaining an outdated system. Ending the NCAA’s nonprofit status and allowing schools to pay athletes directly, just as they pay coaches, would bring college sports in line with economic realities.

College football stopped being about amateurism long ago, and clinging to that pretense only perpetuates outdated norms. We should embrace reforms that reflect reality and treat athletes as valued contributors to a system they sustain.

Brent Williams, Arlington, Va.

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To the editor: Money is ruining sports. This is apparent in professional sports, with the exception of the National Football League (NFL), which has a hard cap on total player salaries. The result is more parity in the NFL, where the teams tend to keep their core of key players longer than the other professional sports.

What’s happening in college sports is especially egregious. In the interest of NIL money, hundreds of college players are greedily hopscotching every year from one campus to another to earn a few extra bucks. Loyalty and continuity have been abandoned. More important, so has the college experience for these young athletes.

The only way to control this is through a hard cap on what colleges can spend on NIL. This budget can be different for each sport and for each division of play. That way, the University of Alabama will have the same budget as Kansas State University, and the University of Oregon will have the same budget as Southern Methodist University.

This necessary change will improve college sports and fan interest.

Joel Miller, Torrance

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To the editor: ML Cavanaugh laments that college football is now just a business. He reminds me of people wishing for the “good old days,” which of course weren’t all that great for a lot of people in most cases.

In this case, in the good old days, players were used by colleges to raise millions of dollars for their schools. Of course they will tell you how many of the players got a free education in exchange for playing sports, but it’s also true that many other players struggled because they were not able to make money during the season.

And don’t get me started on the under-the-table payments to stars.

What’s been done since then has given the players control of their image and curtailed financial cheating. Of course, colleges still rake in their money.

So for me, the good old days of college football are right now. I like living in the present.

Mike Moersen, Thousand Oaks