Well, I know it's a business now but I think the game is losing something, at least for me. That's one reason, I never liked Pro Football because it was all about business and now college football is "closing in" on becoming the same.
I will always love the players I watched at Carolina from years gone by, such as the gentleman in the picture above my username, plus guys like Dickie Harris, Sunshine, Jeff Grantz, Lattimore and so many more that I won't even try to mention simply because they loved USC and was proud to suit up in the Garnet and Black.
Today's players are going to have to grow on me a little bit before I can make the same statement about them.
The game has lost some of its innocence. There are several steps to bring that innocence back to the days where George Rogers, Dickie Harris, and Jeff Grantz were around 40-50 some odd years ago.
1. TV deals would have to be drastically reduced. You want football innocent like it was in 1970 or whatever? There can be 2 or so channels nationally showing 1 or 2 games a week, max. Those who want to watch a game on TV whose game isn't one of the 2 national games of the week will need to actually go to the game or listen to the Gamecock Radio Network. That's how it worked in the innocent times.
2. Ticket prices will need to be reduced radically. $40 max for the best seats in the house, students go free, lowest prices will run you about $5-10 dollars. Luxury seating will be converted to general seating.
3. Due to the huge decrease in revenue, facilities will be stripped to a bare minimum. Current Taj Mahal facilities will be given to the universities for academic program use or sold to private interests. All athletes will be housed with the general student population.
4. Coaches will again be paid a "coach's salary." Adjusted for inflation, Bear Bryn's made about $1.2 million a year towards the end of his career. That will be the new coaching salary cap. Many coaches won't make much more than $100,000 a year. No assistant coaches will even sniff a million dollar annual salary. For reference, Dabo makes about $9.3 million a year.
5. Due to the scaled back version of football, the number of administrators will be decreased. ADs will be making a whole lot less money and will have to do a lot more "nuts and bolts" stuff that their assistant ADs currently do. There will be far, far fewer assistant ADs and support staff.
6. Merchandising deals will be greatly reduced.
7. NCAA compliance must be ramped up dramatically. The Death Penalty will be brought back and probation will need to have teeth again. Post-season bowl bans, TV bans, major scholarship penalties, etc. will be a regular thing. Criminal penalties passed by the federal government would need to be strongly considered to deter particularly egregious behavior on the part of alums, players, coaches, etc.
8. To reduce the incentive of players sitting out, the money in pro football will need to be dramatically reduced as well. In order to bring the innocence back, TV networks, team owners, players, and potential advertisers will need to find it in their hearts to take big paycuts, reduce endorsements, cut back television exposure of pro teams (no NFL network or fan packages), end video game deals, dramatically reduce apparel deals, and cut ticket prices substantially. This will in turn lower the salaries of the NFL players to what they were in the simpler times, thus reducing the incentive of college players to sit out big games.
9. The number of bowl games will be reduced considerably. 8 wins will be the minimum number of wins to qualify. The regular season will be reduced back to 11 games, which will increase time for the players to concentrate on their studies.
So basically, taking the money out of it will increase the innocence. Make it more like the olden times. Even many of the super elite college players will no longer fear losing life-changing amounts of money on one bad play and will be more willing to just play for the "fun of it." The all-important bowl games will have greater importance again. That said, almost all of the above proposals are highly unlikely. Times have changed, perhaps not for the better in all respects. The genie is out of the bottle and it's probably impossible to put him back in.
