The prior paper established that the current system cannot be sustained under existing antitrust law. Institutions cannot coordinate to impose rules governing compensation, eligibility, and movement without a legal framework capable of supporting such coordination.

This conclusion raises a further question: what form must that framework take?

This paper advances a central claim: any durable system will require a mechanism through which athletes are represented in the creation of the rules that govern them. Whether that mechanism takes the form of formal unionization or a functional equivalent, the principle is the same. Coordination must be grounded in consent.

I. The Limits of the Existing Model

The traditional model of college athletics rests on a fundamental asymmetry. Institutions create and enforce rules. Athletes are subject to them.

For many years, this arrangement persisted under the assumption that athletes were not participants in a labor market in the conventional sense. That assumption is increasingly untenable.

Athletes generate substantial economic value. They participate in a competitive market for their services. They make decisions regarding where to play, under what conditions, and for what compensation.

The legal system has begun to recognize these realities. As it does, the legitimacy of unilateral rulemaking diminishes.

A system in which one side defines the terms of participation without meaningful input from the other is difficult to sustain under modern legal principles.

II. The Role of Representation

The introduction of athlete representation addresses this asymmetry.

Where athletes are represented—whether through a formal union or another structured body—the rules that govern compensation, eligibility, and movement can be negotiated rather than imposed.

This distinction is critical. Negotiated rules are not evaluated in the same manner as unilateral restraints. They reflect agreement between parties with defined interests.

Representation, therefore, is not merely a matter of fairness. It is a legal mechanism through which coordination becomes possible.

Without it, institutions remain constrained by antitrust principles that limit their ability to act collectively.

With it, they may establish rules that are both enforceable and durable.

III. Unionization and Its Alternatives

The most familiar model for such representation is unionization.

Under a traditional labor framework, athletes would be classified as employees, organized into bargaining units, and represented by a union that negotiates with institutions or a governing body.

This model has clear advantages. It is well established, legally recognized, and capable of supporting comprehensive agreements.

It also presents challenges. The classification of athletes as employees carries implications for taxation, benefits, and institutional structure. It may vary across jurisdictions. It introduces complexity into a system that has historically resisted such formalization.

For these reasons, alternative models may be considered.

These could include:
- Athlete associations with defined bargaining authority
- Conference-level or national representation bodies
- Hybrid frameworks that combine elements of labor and governance structures

The specific form is less important than the function. Athletes must have a mechanism through which they can participate in the creation of binding rules.

IV. The Necessity of Consent

The underlying principle is consent.

Rules that are imposed by institutions acting collectively are subject to challenge. Rules that are agreed upon through a structured process of negotiation are more likely to withstand scrutiny.

This is not merely a legal distinction. It is a structural one.

A system grounded in consent is more stable because it aligns incentives. Participants are more likely to adhere to rules they have helped create. Disputes can be resolved within defined processes. Expectations become clearer.

In contrast, a system grounded in unilateral control invites challenge. Each rule becomes a potential point of conflict. Each enforcement action becomes a potential dispute.

The shift from imposition to agreement is therefore central to long-term stability.

V. The Scope of Negotiation—and the Case for Institutions

A representative framework would allow for the negotiation of key elements of the system, including:
- Compensation structures, minimums, and revenue participation
- Transfer rules, windows, and roster limits
- Eligibility criteria and duration of participation
- Health, safety, and long-term welfare provisions
- Dispute resolution and enforcement mechanisms

These are the very areas that are currently unstable under the existing model. Bringing them within a negotiated framework would convert a series of contested rules into a coherent system.

The question, however, is why institutions would agree to such an arrangement.

The answer lies in the limits of the current alternative.

First, a negotiated framework allows institutions to reintroduce enforceable limits that are otherwise vulnerable to antitrust challenge. Salary bands, roster caps, and transfer windows—if agreed upon—become far more defensible than if imposed unilaterally.

Second, it provides cost certainty. The current system produces escalating and unpredictable expenditures through NIL arrangements and transfer-driven roster turnover. A structured system allows institutions to plan, budget, and allocate resources with greater confidence.

Third, it restores control through coordination. Institutions today are constrained from acting collectively. A representative framework provides a lawful mechanism through which coordination can occur.

Fourth, it reduces litigation risk. Each rule that is negotiated rather than imposed is less likely to be invalidated through antitrust challenge. The system shifts from a defensive posture to a proactive one.

These advantages do not eliminate tradeoffs. Institutions would relinquish unilateral control over certain decisions. They would accept negotiated constraints where they previously asserted discretion.

But the relevant comparison is not between control and concession. It is between a system in which control is continuously eroded and one in which it is reestablished through agreement.

VI. The Case for Athletes

Any durable system must also align with the interests of athletes.

At present, athletes benefit from a degree of flexibility that did not exist in prior eras. They may transfer more freely. They may participate in NIL arrangements. They may, in some cases, command significant compensation.

These developments are meaningful. They are also incomplete.

The current system offers opportunity without structure. It provides upside, but limited protection against downside.

A representative framework offers several advantages.

First, it provides guaranteed minimums and baseline protections. While top-tier athletes may command substantial compensation in the current system, many do not. A negotiated structure can establish floors, ensuring that all participants receive defined benefits.

Second, it introduces predictability. Transfer windows, roster rules, and eligibility standards create a more stable environment in which athletes can make decisions. The risk of entering the transfer portal without a landing spot is reduced.

Third, it provides enforceable rights. Agreements reached through negotiation can include mechanisms for dispute resolution, grievance procedures, and standardized terms.

Fourth, it aligns short-term opportunity with long-term stability. A more structured system can improve development, continuity, and overall welfare.

The tradeoff is clear. Athletes would accept defined limits in exchange for certainty, protection, and enforceable rights.

This is not a reduction of agency. It is a reallocation of it.

VII. Legal Foundations and Precedent

The concept of negotiated coordination among participants in a competitive market is well established in American law.

Professional sports leagues provide the most direct precedent. In those leagues, agreements among teams that would otherwise raise antitrust concerns—such as salary caps, free agency restrictions, and draft systems—are sustained through collective bargaining agreements with player unions.

These arrangements operate within the framework of federal labor law, including the National Labor Relations Act, and are evaluated under doctrines that recognize the legitimacy of negotiated restraints.

The non-statutory labor exemption permits certain agreements between employers and employee representatives that would otherwise be subject to antitrust challenge. Its practical effect is clear: coordinated rules that are the product of collective bargaining are treated differently than those imposed unilaterally.

College athletics has, to date, operated outside of this framework. But the increasing recognition of athletes as economic participants, combined with ongoing litigation, suggests that this position may not be sustainable.

The relevant question is not whether precedent exists for such arrangements. It does.

The question is whether college athletics will adopt a structure that aligns with that precedent, or continue to operate in tension with it.

VIII. Risks, Failure Modes, and the Path Forward

No structural change of this magnitude is without risk.

For institutions, risks include:
- Increased financial obligations
- Administrative complexity
- Potential spillover into other sports

For athletes, risks include:
- Acceptance of limits on movement or compensation
- Uneven representation
- Negotiated outcomes that may not reflect all preferences

There are also systemic risks, including fragmentation or legal challenge if improperly structured.

These risks must be addressed in design.

But they must also be compared to the risks of the current system.

Those risks include:
- Continued erosion of institutional control through litigation
- Escalating and unpredictable financial commitments
- Increasing instability in roster composition
- A lack of enforceable rules

The relevant comparison is not between risk and certainty. It is between competing forms of risk.

A negotiated system carries the risk of imperfection. The current system carries the risk of incoherence.

One may be designed and improved. The other evolves without direction.

IX. From Authority to Legitimacy

The central challenge identified in earlier papers was the erosion of authority.

Authority is not restored through assertion. It is established through legitimacy.

A system in which rules are negotiated, agreed upon, and enforced within a recognized framework possesses a form of legitimacy that unilateral systems lack.

This legitimacy supports enforcement, reduces conflict, and provides a foundation for stability.

X. The Necessary Condition

A lawful and durable system of college athletics requires more than rules. It requires a structure within which those rules are created.

That structure must account for the interests of both institutions and athletes. It must operate within the constraints of the law. And it must be capable of sustaining coordination over time.

Representation is not optional within such a system. It is a necessary condition.

The question is not whether athletes will have a voice in the system that follows. It is how that voice will be organized—and whether institutions will participate in shaping it.

A system that governs without consent will not endure. A system that incorporates it may.

The instability of the current system is not merely economic or institutional. It is legal.

The prior papers have described a system that lacks coherent authority, produces escalating costs, and fails to align the interests of its participants. But these deficiencies are not occurring in a vacuum. They are unfolding within a legal framework that increasingly constrains the ability of institutions to coordinate their conduct.

This paper advances a central claim: the present model of college athletics cannot be stabilized under existing antitrust law. Any durable solution must either comply with that law or operate within a structure that alters its application—most plausibly through collective bargaining or a functionally equivalent arrangement.

I. The Basic Constraint

Antitrust law, at its core, prohibits agreements among competitors that restrain trade.

In the context of college athletics, this principle has direct application. Universities compete with one another for athletes. Agreements among them to limit compensation, restrict movement, or otherwise regulate the terms under which athletes participate are therefore subject to scrutiny.

For many years, the NCAA operated under the assumption that its rules would receive some degree of judicial deference based on the concept of amateurism. That assumption no longer holds.

As established in NCAA v. Alston, such rules are evaluated under ordinary antitrust principles. They must be justified, and they must withstand analysis that considers their actual effects.

This creates a fundamental constraint: institutions cannot simply agree among themselves to impose limits that would be impermissible in other markets.

II. The Failure of the Current Model

The present system attempts to maintain coordinated rules without a legal structure capable of sustaining them.

At its core, the NCAA and its member institutions are horizontal competitors in the market for athletic labor. Each institution seeks to attract and retain athletes, and each stands to benefit from imposing limits on the compensation and movement of those athletes. Agreements among such competitors to restrict these terms are, under ordinary principles of antitrust law, presumptively suspect.

For many years, the NCAA relied on the concept of amateurism as a justification for these coordinated restraints. That justification has steadily weakened. In O’Bannon and, more decisively, in NCAA v. Alston, courts rejected the notion that the NCAA’s rules are entitled to categorical deference. Instead, they are subject to the same rule-of-reason analysis applied in other industries.

Under that framework, the NCAA must demonstrate that its restraints serve a procompetitive purpose and that they are reasonably tailored to achieve that purpose. Even where some justification is accepted, less restrictive alternatives must be considered.

This is a demanding standard. It requires not only that a rule be defensible in theory, but that it withstand scrutiny in practice.

The difficulty is that many of the NCAA’s core restrictions—limits on compensation, constraints on benefits, and rules governing athlete mobility—are precisely the types of agreements that antitrust law is designed to examine closely. As those rules are challenged, institutions are required to defend them individually, often with limited success.

The result is not a coherent system of governance, but a series of partial defenses. Some rules survive in modified form. Others are struck down. Still others are abandoned before adjudication.

This process does not produce stability. It produces fragmentation.

What has been weakened in doctrine cannot be preserved in practice by repetition. It must be justified—or replaced.

III. The Limits of Coordination Without Structure

The core difficulty is not simply that institutions wish to coordinate. It is that they are attempting to do so without a legally recognized framework that permits coordination of this kind.

In most markets, competitors cannot agree to fix prices, cap compensation, or restrict the movement of labor. Such agreements are treated as unlawful restraints of trade, regardless of whether they are motivated by a desire for competitive balance or long-term stability.

College athletics is increasingly being analyzed within that same framework.

Absent a structural exemption or alternative legal regime, agreements among institutions to limit athlete compensation or movement will continue to face challenge. Each such agreement must be justified anew. Each must survive scrutiny under evolving case law. And each is vulnerable to being invalidated.

This creates a paradox. The more institutions attempt to coordinate in order to stabilize the system, the more exposed they become to legal challenge.

The experience of recent litigation demonstrates this dynamic. Restrictions once thought essential to the model are now contested. Rules are revised not through internal deliberation, but in response to external pressure. The system adapts, but it does not stabilize.

Professional sports leagues confronted this problem directly. Left unstructured, agreements among teams to limit player compensation or movement would face the same antitrust challenges. The solution was not to abandon coordination, but to place it within a lawful framework—most notably through collective bargaining agreements with players’ unions.

Within that framework, rules governing compensation, free agency, and roster construction are not treated as unlawful conspiracies among competitors, but as negotiated terms between parties with recognized interests.

College athletics, by contrast, attempts to achieve similar outcomes without the same legal foundation.

The result is predictable. Coordination without structure is treated as collusion. Stability without agreement is treated as restraint.

A system that relies on such coordination cannot endure in its present form.

IV. The Role of Collective Bargaining

A collectively bargained system offers a path to lawful coordination.

Under such a system:
- Compensation structures can be defined
- Movement rules can be established
- Eligibility frameworks can be agreed upon
- Enforcement mechanisms can be implemented

These features are not immune from scrutiny, but they are evaluated under a different legal standard than unilateral agreements among competitors.

The key distinction is consent. Where rules are negotiated between parties with defined interests—institutions and athletes—they are not treated in the same manner as imposed restraints.

This does not eliminate all legal risk. It alters its character.

V. The Cost of Avoidance

Institutions may prefer to avoid this transition. Collective bargaining introduces complexity. It requires organization among athletes. It formalizes relationships that have historically been treated as distinct from employment.

But avoidance carries its own cost.

Absent a lawful framework, the system will continue to be shaped through litigation. Rules will be defined not by design, but by judicial decision. Constraints will emerge incrementally, often without regard to systemic coherence.

In such an environment, institutions do not control the rules. They respond to them.

VI. The Inevitability of Structural Change

The trajectory of recent cases makes clear that the current model cannot be preserved indefinitely.

Efforts to maintain coordinated limits without a supporting legal structure will continue to face challenge. Some may succeed in the short term. Over time, the cumulative effect is erosion.

The system will change. The only question is how.

A system that emerges through deliberate design—grounded in lawful structure and aligned incentives—will differ materially from one that emerges through piecemeal litigation.

VII. The Institutional Choice

Institutions are therefore confronted with a choice.

They may continue to operate within a legally unstable framework, defending individual rules as they are challenged and adapting incrementally as those challenges succeed.

Or they may participate in the construction of a system that can sustain coordinated rules within the bounds of the law.

The former preserves flexibility in the short term. The latter provides stability in the long term.

VIII. Law as Constraint and Catalyst

Antitrust law is often described as a constraint on institutional action. In the present context, it is more accurately understood as both constraint and catalyst.

It constrains what institutions may do in isolation. It prevents competitors from coordinating in ways that suppress compensation or restrict mobility without sufficient justification. In doing so, it limits the ability of the current system to preserve itself through informal agreement.

But it also serves a catalytic function. By restricting unstructured coordination, it creates the conditions under which structured agreement becomes necessary.

Institutions are not prohibited from creating rules. They are prohibited from doing so without a lawful framework. The distinction is not between regulation and non-regulation, but between coordinated action that is justified and that which is not.

This distinction matters. It explains why the present system continues to lose ground in litigation while more structured systems—such as those in professional sports—are able to sustain coordinated rules over time.

The law does not forbid order. It requires that order be constructed in a manner consistent with recognized legal principles.

In this respect, antitrust law is not merely an external pressure on the system. It is the reason a new system must be built.

IX. From Litigation to Design

The present system is being reshaped through litigation. Each case alters the boundaries within which institutions operate. Each decision redefines what is permissible, often in narrow and context-specific ways.

This process is not well suited to system design.

Courts resolve disputes. They do not construct comprehensive frameworks. They do not align incentives across participants, nor do they account for the full range of interests at stake. Their role is reactive, not architectural.

The consequence is a system that evolves incrementally, without coherence. Rules are invalidated piecemeal. New practices emerge without coordination. The overall structure becomes increasingly difficult to define.

This is not a path to stability. It is a path to fragmentation.

A durable system requires something different: agreement, structure, and legitimacy. It requires rules that are not merely defensible in isolation, but coherent in combination. It requires a framework within which coordination is not only possible, but lawful.

Such a system will not emerge from continued litigation. It must be constructed.

The choice before institutions is therefore not whether change will occur. It is whether that change will be directed or imposed.

A system designed by its participants may balance interests, allocate value, and establish durable rules. A system produced through litigation will reflect only the resolution of individual disputes, without regard to broader coherence.

The distinction is not academic. It is determinative.

The system that follows will either be the product of deliberate design or the accumulation of judicial decisions. It cannot be both.

Those who act will shape it. Those who do not will be shaped by it.

Law does not wait for structure. It fills the space where structure is absent.

Reform in college football will not occur unless the institutions that comprise the system—universities and conferences—conclude that change serves their interests. It is therefore necessary to address directly the question that follows from the prior papers: why would those who appear to benefit from the current arrangement choose to alter it?

At present, the answer may seem uncertain. Revenues have increased. Media rights agreements have grown in scale. The most prominent conferences have consolidated power and expanded their reach.

But these developments, while substantial, do not establish stability. They mask its absence.

This paper advances a central claim: the current system allows institutions to maximize revenue, but it does so within a structure that they do not control and cannot stabilize. A more structured system would reduce that risk, even if it imposes constraints on certain forms of immediate advantage.

I. The Illusion of Institutional Success

It is true that, at the highest levels of college football, revenues have reached unprecedented levels. Media agreements have expanded, conference distributions have increased, and the sport has achieved a scale that would have been difficult to imagine in prior eras.

But revenue growth alone is not a sufficient measure of institutional health.

The present system requires institutions to operate within an environment defined by:
- Legal uncertainty regarding compensation and eligibility rules
- Escalating financial commitments without corresponding structural controls
- Continuous renegotiation of roster composition through the transfer portal
- Increasing dependence on informal and external compensation mechanisms

These conditions do not reflect a stable system. They reflect one that is extracting value while its underlying constraints weaken.

The present system rewards success. It does not protect it.

II. The Escalation Problem

In the absence of enforceable limits, competition among institutions produces predictable results.

Programs seek to:
- Outspend competitors in recruiting and retention
- Expand NIL commitments through affiliated collectives
- Replace underperforming players through transfer acquisition
- Maintain competitive parity through continual roster turnover

Each of these actions is rational in isolation. Collectively, they produce escalation.

No institution, however well-resourced, can opt out of this dynamic. Each participant must continue to increase commitments simply to maintain position. The absence of enforceable limits ensures that restraint is punished and expansion is required.

In such a system, success does not produce stability. It produces higher costs.

This is not a sustainable equilibrium. It is an arms race.

III. The Erosion of Legal Control

The current system is not only economically unstable. It is legally deteriorating.

For decades, the NCAA and its member institutions relied on a combination of tradition and judicial deference to sustain a system of coordinated rules governing compensation, eligibility, and athlete movement. That foundation has steadily eroded.

The process did not occur all at once. It has unfolded over time, through a series of decisions that have progressively narrowed the range of permissible institutional control.

In NCAA v. Board of Regents, the Supreme Court made clear that the NCAA was subject to antitrust scrutiny, even while suggesting that some degree of coordination might be necessary to produce college athletics as a product. That suggestion was, for many years, treated as a form of limited protection.

In O’Bannon v. NCAA, that protection began to weaken. The Ninth Circuit rejected the NCAA’s prohibition on certain forms of athlete compensation, recognizing that such restrictions could violate antitrust law. The concept of amateurism, while not abandoned, was no longer sufficient to justify broad restraints.

In NCAA v. Alston, the Supreme Court confirmed that NCAA rules are subject to ordinary antitrust analysis. The Court unanimously rejected the NCAA’s position and emphasized that its restrictions are not entitled to special treatment. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence made explicit what had become increasingly apparent: many of the remaining limits on athlete compensation may be difficult to justify under existing law.

Recent eligibility challenges have extended this trajectory. Cases involving athletes such as Trinidad Chambless and Owen Heinecke have demonstrated the willingness of courts to intervene where eligibility rules constrain opportunity without sufficient justification. These decisions are not isolated. They are part of a pattern.

The direction of that pattern is clear. Each successful challenge further constrains the ability of institutions to impose coordinated limits. Each adverse ruling reduces the set of rules that can be confidently enforced.

The result is a system in which institutions attempt to regulate conduct through mechanisms that may not survive judicial review. Rules exist, but their durability is uncertain. Enforcement actions may be taken, but their outcomes cannot be assured.

Institutions are therefore not operating within a stable legal framework. They are operating within one that is being incrementally dismantled.

This has practical consequences. Planning becomes more difficult. Policies are adopted with caution. Enforcement becomes inconsistent. The ability to coordinate across institutions—once the defining feature of the system—diminishes.

A system that cannot reliably define or defend its own rules cannot long remain in its present form.

What has been weakened by decision will not be restored by assertion.

IV. The Coordination Problem

Institutions do not operate independently. They operate within conferences, and conferences operate within a broader competitive ecosystem.

This creates a coordination problem.

Even where institutions recognize the inefficiencies of the current system, they are limited in their ability to act unilaterally. Any attempt to impose internal discipline—whether financial, competitive, or structural—risks placing that institution at a disadvantage relative to its peers.

Conferences face a similar constraint. While they may coordinate among their members, they remain in competition with other conferences for media value, postseason access, and competitive success.

The result is a system in which all participants may recognize the need for change, but no participant can achieve it alone.

V. The Value of Enforceable Structure

A more structured system offers institutions something that the current one does not: enforceability.

Through a collectively agreed framework, institutions could:
- Establish defined limits on compensation structures
- Create predictable roster management rules
- Reduce the volatility associated with unrestricted transfers
- Align incentives across participants

Such a system would not eliminate competition. It would define its terms.

In doing so, it would allow institutions to plan, invest, and operate within a stable environment rather than one subject to continual revision.

VI. The Role of Conferences

Conferences are not merely participants in the current system. They are its organizing units.

As such, they will play a central role in any transition.

In the near term, reform must occur with conferences largely intact. Over time, however, conferences may evolve in function—from independent governing entities to components of a broader federated structure.

This evolution would not diminish their importance. It would redefine it.

VII. The Tradeoff

The decision before institutions is not whether to preserve the current system in its entirety or to abandon it completely.

It is whether to continue operating in a system that maximizes short-term gain while exposing participants to long-term risk, or to adopt a structure that moderates certain forms of immediate advantage in exchange for durability.

This is not an unfamiliar tradeoff. It is the same one confronted in other industries in which unregulated competition produces instability.

VIII. The Risk of Waiting

The present system allows institutions to generate substantial revenue. That fact, standing alone, creates the appearance of stability.

But revenue growth is not the same as structural security.

Institutions today are exposed to:
- Legal developments that may invalidate core operating assumptions
- Cost escalation that cannot be unilaterally controlled
- Competitive pressures that require continual reinvestment
- Governance fragmentation that limits coordinated response

These risks do not manifest all at once. They accumulate.

The danger, therefore, is not immediate collapse. It is gradual loss of control.

A system that appears to function well in the present may, over time, become increasingly difficult to manage. Decisions are made reactively. Constraints are imposed externally. The ability of institutions to shape outcomes diminishes.

The question facing institutions is not whether the system will change, but who will determine the form that change takes.

Those who engage early will shape the rules, the structure, and the distribution of value in the system that follows. Those who delay will inherit it.

In this context, delay is not neutrality. It is a choice to accept a future defined by others.

IX. From Maximization to Stability

The present system rewards maximization. It encourages institutions to pursue every available advantage, even where those advantages are temporary or unstable.

A more durable system would instead prioritize stability.

This does not mean reducing competition. It means structuring it in a way that is sustainable over time.

The institutions that recognize this distinction earliest will be best positioned to shape the system that follows.

Those that do not will ultimately be required to adapt to it.

If the case for reform were solely a matter of principle, it would already be complete. The existing system is unstable, its authority uncertain, and its incentives misaligned. But systems of this scale do not yield to principle alone. They are sustained—and constrained—by the practical realities of contract, coordination, and dependence.

The primary obstacle to reform in college football is not disagreement over ends. It is the difficulty of altering a system that is deeply, and deliberately, locked in.

This paper advances a central claim: meaningful reform is both necessary and achievable, but only through a phased transition that respects existing commitments while establishing the foundations of a new order.

I. The Reality of Institutional Lock-In

Modern college football is not merely a competitive enterprise. It is a network of long-term contractual commitments among conferences, institutions, media partners, and postseason operators.

These commitments are substantial, both in duration and value.

The Big Ten’s current media rights agreements with Fox, CBS, and NBC extend through the 2029–2030 season and are widely reported to exceed $7 billion in total value. The SEC’s agreement with ESPN runs through 2034. The Big 12’s media arrangements extend into the early 2030s. The Atlantic Coast Conference’s media rights agreement with ESPN—combined with its grant-of-rights structure—extends through 2036.

The College Football Playoff itself is governed by a long-term agreement with ESPN, recently extended through the 2031–2032 season. Bowl games, conference tie-ins, and related sponsorship agreements further entrench the existing structure.

These agreements are not peripheral to the system. They are its economic foundation.

They allocate revenue, define competitive relationships, and create binding expectations among the parties. They are negotiated precisely to provide long-term certainty. That certainty, once established, cannot be withdrawn unilaterally without consequence.

II. Grant of Rights and the Limits of Exit

Among the most significant of these constraints are conference grant-of-rights agreements.

Under a grant-of-rights structure, member institutions assign to the conference their media rights for the duration of the agreement. In practical terms, this means that even if an institution were to leave the conference, the conference—and its media partners—would retain the rights to broadcast that institution’s home games for the remainder of the term.

The Atlantic Coast Conference provides the clearest example. Its grant-of-rights agreement extends through 2036. Any member institution seeking to exit the conference would not only face a substantial exit fee, but would also forfeit control of its media rights for more than a decade. The economic consequences of such a move are prohibitive.

These provisions are not incidental. They are designed to prevent precisely the kind of fragmentation that might otherwise occur in a system driven by shifting incentives.

They also illustrate a broader principle: the current structure is not merely customary. It is contractually enforced.

III. The Cost of Immediate Change

The temptation, in the face of systemic instability, is to advocate for rapid and comprehensive reform. But in a system governed by contract, speed carries cost.

These agreements are legally binding. They cannot be disregarded without triggering consequences that are both predictable and severe.

An abrupt attempt to replace the existing structure would expose participating institutions and conferences to:
- Claims for breach of contract
- Claims for tortious interference with contractual relations
- Potential damages measured in the billions of dollars
- Injunctive relief sought by media partners to preserve their rights

Media companies, having committed substantial capital in exchange for defined rights, would have strong incentives to enforce those agreements. Conferences, in turn, are bound not only by external contracts but by internal commitments to their member institutions.

The legal system is not indifferent to such arrangements. It exists, in part, to enforce them.

The result is that no single actor—not a conference, not a group of institutions, not even a newly formed governing body—can unilaterally unwind the existing system without incurring extraordinary legal and financial risk.

What has been bound by contract cannot be dissolved by preference. It must be succeeded by design.

IV. The Limits of Inaction

At the same time, the alternative—indefinite continuation of the present system—is no solution at all.

The current model relies on continual adaptation without underlying stability. Rules are revised, enforcement is adjusted, and new mechanisms are introduced, but the foundational problems remain unresolved.

Incremental change, in this context, does not produce equilibrium. It postpones it.

A system that cannot sustain its own rules, and cannot defend them in court, will not be stabilized through marginal adjustment.

V. The Case for Phased Transition

If neither immediate disruption nor indefinite continuation is viable, a third path must be considered: structured transition.

A phased approach to reform would proceed on two parallel tracks:
- The honoring of existing contractual obligations
- The construction of a new governing framework capable of supplanting the old

These tracks are not in conflict. They are complementary.

The existence of long-term agreements does not render reform impossible. It defines the manner in which reform must occur. Contracts fix the present, but they do not control the future beyond their term.

The question, therefore, is not whether the system can change, but when and how that change is prepared.

VI. The First Dominoes

A transition of this magnitude does not begin with dissolution. It begins with coordination—primarily among conferences, rather than individual institutions.

The first steps toward a new system would not require the immediate abandonment of existing agreements. They would require the alignment of key participants around a shared future framework.

Those steps would include:

1. Formation of a Football Governance Working Group
A coalition of leading conferences—most plausibly the Big Ten and SEC—would establish a joint working group to define the structure of a successor system.

2. Development of a Model Framework
This group would articulate the core elements of the new system: compensation structures, eligibility rules, transfer windows, enforcement mechanisms, and governance principles.

3. Engagement with Athlete Representatives
Any durable system must incorporate athlete participation. Early engagement would be essential to establishing legitimacy and laying the groundwork for a collectively bargained structure.

4. Preliminary Alignment with Media Partners
Media companies would be engaged early to align incentives around a more stable, coherent long-term product.

5. Non-Binding Institutional Commitments
Institutions would begin signaling intent to participate in the new framework upon expiration of existing obligations.

6. Regulatory and Legal Preparation
Participants would begin addressing antitrust, labor, and governance frameworks necessary to sustain the system.

These steps do not disrupt the present system. They prepare its successor.

VII. The Constraint of Conference Membership

Any proposal for reform must also account for a practical constraint that is often overlooked: the leading programs in college football are not independent actors. They are members of conferences whose internal arrangements bind them together.

In the SEC, Big Ten, and other major conferences, institutions share media rights, scheduling structures, and revenue distributions. These relationships are governed by contracts, bylaws, and long-standing institutional commitments.

As a result, the programs that would form the core of any new system cannot, in the near term, selectively disengage from their conference peers. They cannot construct a new competitive structure that includes some members while excluding others without implicating the same contractual and governance constraints that limit broader reform.

This reality has immediate implications. Schools such as Vanderbilt or Mississippi State in the SEC, or comparable institutions elsewhere, are not incidental participants. They are part of the structure that defines the conference itself.

In the short term, therefore, meaningful reform must proceed with conferences largely intact. The question is not how to exclude institutions, but how to operate differently within existing groupings.

This constraint does not eliminate the possibility of differentiation over time. But such outcomes, if they occur, will emerge through transition rather than declaration.

What cannot be separated at the outset must be governed in common, until such time as separation becomes both lawful and practical.

VIII. What Must Be Given Up

No transition of this kind is without cost.

Institutions may be required to relinquish certain forms of short-term flexibility in exchange for long-term stability. Conferences may yield aspects of their autonomy to a centralized governing structure. Media partners may adjust existing assumptions about inventory and control.

Athletes, as discussed in prior papers, may accept defined structures in place of unrestricted movement.

These are not trivial concessions. They are the price of coherence.

A system that seeks stability must, by necessity, limit certain forms of opportunistic behavior. The question is not whether such limits exist, but whether they produce a more durable and equitable result.

IX. From Possibility to Implementation

The question is not whether reform is difficult. It is.

The question is whether the present system can endure in its current form. It cannot.

Between these realities lies the necessity of transition.

A system so deeply embedded cannot be replaced by declaration. It must be succeeded through construction—carefully, deliberately, and with full recognition of the constraints that define the present.

The alternative is continued improvisation within a structure that has already begun to fail.

That alternative is not stability. It is delay.

The case for reform in college football cannot rest solely on institutional concerns or legal necessity. Any durable system must also serve the interests of the athletes themselves. Absent that alignment, reform will not be adopted, and if adopted, will not endure.

It is therefore necessary to confront directly the most immediate objection to structural change: that the current system, however imperfect, represents an unprecedented expansion of player freedom and opportunity.

In one sense, that objection is correct. But it is incomplete.

A system need not be unjust to be unsustainable. It is enough that it distributes its benefits unevenly, its risks unpredictably, and its outcomes without durable structure. Such a system may persist for a time. It does not endure.

This paper advances a narrower and more consequential claim: the present system maximizes upside for a small number of athletes, while lowering the expected outcome for many others. A more structured system—properly designed—would raise the floor for all players while preserving meaningful upside for those who earn it.

I. The Promise and Reality of the Current System

The modern college football landscape is often described as one of “player empowerment.” Athletes may transfer with relative ease, participate in NIL markets, and negotiate opportunities that were unavailable in prior eras.

For a subset of players—those with immediate market value, high visibility, and multiple suitors—this environment has produced significant gains. Compensation has increased, mobility has expanded, and leverage has shifted.

But these outcomes are not evenly distributed.

For many athletes, the current system operates less as a platform for opportunity than as a market defined by uncertainty and asymmetric information. Decisions are made quickly, often without complete information, and frequently without enforceable commitments.

The result is a system that appears expansive in theory but is unstable in practice.

II. The Reality of Unstructured Free Agency

The transfer portal, in its current form, functions as a kind of uncapped free agency. But unlike its professional analogues, it operates without contracts, guarantees, or durable rights.

Athletes who enter the portal frequently do so without secured alternatives. In doing so, they may forfeit their existing roster position, their scholarship security, and their place within a program.

Many discover, too late, that the market for their services is narrower than anticipated.

Others accept opportunities based on informal assurances—understandings that may change as rosters shift, coaching staffs evolve, or financial resources are reallocated. In the absence of enforceable agreements, these assurances provide little protection.

The result is a pattern that has become increasingly common: athletes moving multiple times in short periods, pursuing marginal gains, and absorbing the costs of each transition.

Markets of this kind do not fail for lack of opportunity. They fail for lack of structure. Where commitments are informal and enforcement uncertain, rational actors are compelled to prioritize short-term advantage over long-term stability. The result is not equilibrium, but continual motion.

No system can long endure in which movement is unbounded, promises are unenforceable, and outcomes are determined more by timing than by merit.

III. The Distribution of Benefits

The present system produces clear winners. Highly sought-after players—particularly those at the top of the roster—are able to leverage competition among programs to maximize short-term compensation and opportunity.

But the system also produces a broader class of participants for whom the benefits are more limited and the risks more pronounced.

These include:
- Players who enter the portal and fail to secure a comparable opportunity
- Players who are replaced by incoming transfers and lose their position
- Players who rely on informal NIL arrangements that lack durability
- Players whose development is disrupted by repeated movement

For these athletes, the current system offers possibility, but not protection.

The present system allows players to win big. It also allows them to lose everything. A better system would narrow that gap.

IV. The Value of Structure

A more structured system would not eliminate opportunity. It would define it.

Through negotiated rules—most plausibly in the form of a collectively bargained framework—athletes could secure benefits that are largely absent from the current model.

These would include:
- Guaranteed minimum compensation, rather than speculative opportunities
- Contractual commitments of defined duration
- Clearly defined transfer windows and conditions
- Enforceable agreements, rather than informal assurances
- Grievance mechanisms and dispute resolution processes

Under such a system, compensation would not depend on informal arrangements or shifting market conditions. It would be guaranteed, contractual, and enforceable.

Structure, properly understood, is not the enemy of freedom. It is the condition that makes freedom meaningful over time.

For many athletes, this represents not a reduction in opportunity, but an improvement in expected outcome.

V. Freedom and Its Limits

The current system is often defended on the ground that it maximizes individual freedom. But freedom, in this context, is not costless.

What is described as freedom in the present system is, in many cases, the absence of protection. The ability to move without restriction is of limited value where the consequences of movement are borne entirely by the player.

In the current system, a player who tests the market risks forfeiting his position without assurance of a replacement opportunity. A more structured system would decouple exploration from displacement, preserving both mobility and security.

Professional leagues confronted this dynamic decades ago. The result was not the elimination of player movement, but its structuring through contracts, free agency periods, and collectively bargained rules.

Those systems limit certain forms of movement. They also provide compensation, security, and enforceability that an unstructured market cannot.

VI. The Broader Athletic Interest

The interests at stake in the present system are not limited to football players alone. The current structure of college athletics, driven increasingly by football’s economic gravity, has imposed costs on athletes in other sports that are both substantial and unnecessary.

Conference realignment has produced leagues that span the continent, requiring athletes in sports such as baseball, softball, track and field, and volleyball to travel across multiple time zones for routine competition. There is no reason a UCLA Bruin baseball player should be playing in State College in March, nor should a Rutgers volleyball player be headed to Eugene, Oregon for a match. These demands impose physical strain, disrupt academic schedules, and erode the regional character that once defined collegiate athletics.

These outcomes are not the product of necessity. They are the byproduct of a system organized around football revenues but applied indiscriminately across all sports.

A football-specific governing structure would create the opportunity—indeed, the necessity—for other sports to reorganize along more rational lines. Regional competition, reduced travel, and more coherent scheduling would better serve the interests of the vast majority of student-athletes.

The present arrangement asks non-revenue athletes to bear the costs of a system from which they derive limited benefit. A restructured system could restore a measure of proportionality.

In this respect, reform is not a narrowing of opportunity, but an expansion of it—extending the benefits of rational organization beyond a single sport to the broader athletic community.

VII. Aligning Player Interests with System Stability

The long-term interests of athletes are not limited to maximizing immediate compensation. They include:
- Development within stable programs
- Visibility within coherent competitive structures
- Access to enforceable economic opportunities
- Protection against arbitrary or informal decision-making

A system that provides these features is not less favorable to athletes simply because it imposes structure. It is more complete.

The present system, by contrast, prioritizes short-term flexibility at the expense of long-term stability.

VIII. What the Player Gains

The advantages of the present system are visible. Its protections are not.

A structured system would offer athletes benefits that are largely unavailable today:

- Compensation that is guaranteed rather than contingent
- Agreements that are enforceable rather than aspirational
- Mobility that is defined rather than speculative
- Opportunity that is durable rather than momentary

The current system asks players to assume risk in exchange for possibility. A structured system would reduce that risk while preserving meaningful opportunity.

For the small number of athletes at the very top of the market, this may represent a modest constraint. For the majority, it represents a material improvement.

IX. The Choice Before the Players

The question is not whether the current system provides benefits. It does. The question is whether it provides them in a manner that is stable, enforceable, and broadly shared.

At present, it does not.

A system that relies on continual renegotiation, informal commitments, and uncertain outcomes cannot sustain itself indefinitely. It may reward some participants greatly. It will fail to protect many others.

Athletes are therefore confronted with a choice—not between freedom and constraint, but between different forms of each. One offers flexibility without security. The other, properly designed, offers both.

The system that emerges will depend on which form they choose to prefer—and which they are willing to help construct.

This is an ongoing series examining how college football should be governed in the NIL era. Each paper builds on the last, beginning with the failure of the current system and moving toward a proposed constitutional framework for the sport’s future. New papers will be published regularly.

The College Football Federalist Papers — Table of Contents

(A Framework for the Future of College Football)

Paper No. 1 — The Case for Change

Why the current system is unstable, unsustainable, and increasingly disconnected from the realities of modern college football.

Paper No. 2 — The Authority Problem

Why the NCAA no longer possesses the legal or practical authority to govern major college football.

Paper No. 3 — The Player’s Interest

Why a more structured system would better serve athletes by raising the floor, reducing risk, and creating enforceable rights.

Paper No. 4 — The Transition Problem

Why meaningful reform must account for existing contracts, media rights, and institutional constraints—and how a new system can emerge alongside the old.

Paper No. 5 — The Institutional Interest

Why institutions are winning today but losing control of tomorrow—and why early action will determine who shapes what comes next.

Paper No. 6 — The Antitrust Constraint

Why antitrust law makes the current system unsustainable—and why only a lawful structure can support durable rules.

Paper No. 7 — The Labor Question

Why a stable system requires athlete representation—and how collective bargaining or its equivalent can reconcile control with consent.

Paper No. 8 — The Federation Model

What a new governing structure for college football could look like, including tiers, governance, and institutional alignment.

Paper No. 9 — Compensation and Competitive Balance

How revenue sharing, salary structures, and spending controls can align incentives while preserving competition.

Paper No. 10 — Eligibility, Transfers, and the Calendar

How to create a coherent system for player movement, professional pathways, eligibility, and scheduling that reduces chaos and improves outcomes.

Paper No. 11 — The Future of College Athletics

How football’s separation could reshape non-revenue sports, restore regional competition, and stabilize the broader collegiate model.

Paper No. 12 — Implementation and the Path Forward

How the system transitions from theory to reality—and what must occur for reform to succeed.

Paper No. 13 — The New Order: College Football After Reform

What a fully realized system would look like in practice—from governance and competition to player compensation, movement, and the rhythm of a season.

The instability of modern college football is not primarily a problem of rules. It is a problem of authority.

Rules exist in abundance—transfer restrictions, eligibility standards, compensation guidelines, NIL disclosures, roster limits. Yet none have produced lasting stability. The reason is not difficult to identify: rules that lack enforceability, or that rest on legally infirm foundations, do not govern conduct. They invite challenge.

This paper advances a central claim: college football currently operates without a legitimate governing authority capable of imposing binding, durable, and legally defensible rules. Until that problem is addressed, reform will remain temporary and reactive.

I. The Erosion of NCAA Authority

For much of the modern era, the NCAA functioned as the central regulator of college athletics. Its authority rested on two interrelated premises: (1) voluntary association among member institutions, and (2) judicial deference to the concept of amateurism as a procompetitive justification under antitrust law.

Both premises have been substantially weakened.

The NCAA’s exposure to antitrust scrutiny is not new. In NCAA v. Board of Regents, 468 U.S. 85 (1984), the Supreme Court held that NCAA television restrictions violated Section 1 of the Sherman Act, while at the same time suggesting—though not holding—that certain forms of coordination might be necessary to preserve the character of college sports. For decades, the NCAA relied on this language to justify broad regulatory authority.

That reliance has proven increasingly untenable.

In O’Bannon v. NCAA, 802 F.3d 1049 (9th Cir. 2015), the Ninth Circuit rejected the NCAA’s prohibition on certain forms of athlete compensation, recognizing that limits on education-related benefits could violate antitrust law. While the court attempted to preserve a limited conception of amateurism, it marked a clear departure from blanket judicial deference.

That trajectory culminated in NCAA v. Alston, 594 U.S. ___ (2021), in which the Supreme Court unanimously affirmed that NCAA compensation restrictions are subject to ordinary rule-of-reason analysis. The Court rejected the NCAA’s request for special treatment and emphasized that it is not exempt from the Sherman Act. Justice Kavanaugh’s concurrence went further, questioning whether any remaining compensation limits could survive scrutiny.

Subsequent litigation has continued along this path. Lower courts have shown increasing skepticism toward eligibility rules and compensation limits that function as restraints on athlete mobility or economic opportunity. Recent challenges by athletes such as Trinidad Chambless and Owen Heinecke reflect this trend, with courts granting relief where eligibility restrictions lacked sufficient justification under traditional antitrust principles.

At the same time, the NCAA has retreated from meaningful enforcement in the NIL space. Faced with legal exposure, it has issued guidance rather than rules, and interpretations rather than enforcement actions. The resulting system is characterized by formal prohibitions alongside practical non-enforcement.

An institution that cannot enforce its rules, and cannot defend them in court, does not exercise authority in any meaningful sense.

II. The Absence of a Governing Mechanism

In response to the NCAA’s diminished role, various actors have attempted to fill the void: conferences asserting greater autonomy, collectives facilitating compensation, and more recently, the creation of the College Sports Commission as a centralized NIL clearinghouse.

These efforts reflect a recognition of the problem. But they do not solve it.

The core issue is not coordination; it is enforceability. Any entity that seeks to regulate compensation or restrict athlete movement must contend with the Sherman Act’s prohibition on concerted restraints of trade. Absent a recognized exemption—either statutory or labor-based—such rules are presumptively vulnerable to challenge.

The early difficulties encountered by the College Sports Commission illustrate this constraint. Efforts to review and standardize NIL agreements, including those involving major third-party operators such as Learfield, raise immediate questions: What is the legal basis for rejecting a transaction? What remedy exists for noncompliance? What prevents parties from restructuring arrangements outside the system?

Without binding authority, a clearinghouse functions as an advisory body. Market participants remain free to disregard its determinations.

III. Antitrust Constraints and the Limits of Voluntary Rules

The current system attempts to impose order through what are, in effect, horizontal agreements among competitors—member institutions agreeing to limit compensation, regulate transfers, or standardize eligibility.

Under traditional antitrust doctrine, such agreements are subject to scrutiny under Section 1 of the Sherman Act. While some coordination is permissible under the rule of reason, courts have been increasingly unwilling to accept broad, prophylactic restrictions on athlete compensation or mobility absent clear procompetitive justification.

The NCAA’s historical reliance on “amateurism” as such a justification has lost force. As the Court observed in Alston, “the NCAA is not above the law,” and its restrictions are subject to the same analysis applied to other market actors.

Board of Regents once suggested that some coordination was necessary to produce college football as a product. But subsequent decisions have clarified that necessity does not confer immunity, and that restraints must be narrowly tailored and supported by evidence, not tradition.

Courts do not invalidate NCAA rules because they oppose college sports, but because those rules resemble the very forms of coordinated market restriction that the Sherman Act was designed to prevent.

In the absence of a recognized exemption, any attempt to impose meaningful constraints—salary limits, transfer restrictions, eligibility caps—faces a high probability of legal challenge and potential invalidation.

IV. The Illusion of Player Empowerment

The current environment is often described as one of unprecedented player empowerment. In a narrow sense, this is accurate: athletes possess greater freedom to transfer and to participate in NIL markets than at any prior point.

But freedom without structure is not synonymous with security.

The present system resembles an uncapped free agency market without contracts, guarantees, or enforceable commitments. While a subset of athletes benefit significantly, many others experience volatility and displacement.

Athletes routinely:
- Enter the transfer portal without secured alternatives
- Forfeit existing roster positions upon entry
- Receive informal or nonbinding assurances
- Cycle through multiple institutions in short periods

From a labor market perspective, this is not a stable equilibrium. It is a transitional state characterized by asymmetric information, weak enforcement, and uneven bargaining power.

V. Why a Structured System May Better Serve Athletes

A collectively bargained framework—however controversial in concept—offers mechanisms unavailable under the current regime.

Through collective bargaining, parties may establish:
- Minimum compensation standards
- Contractual terms and duration
- Defined transfer windows and conditions
- Grievance and enforcement procedures

Most importantly, such agreements benefit from the nonstatutory labor exemption to antitrust law, which permits coordinated restraints that would otherwise be impermissible if negotiated between labor and management.

Professional leagues operate within this framework. The resulting systems do not eliminate competition; they structure it.

For many athletes, particularly those outside the highest compensation tier, such a system may offer greater predictability and protection than the current open market.

VI. Legislative and Executive Uncertainty

Efforts to resolve these issues through federal legislation have thus far been inconclusive. Proposals such as the SCORE Act face significant political and structural hurdles, and there is little indication of imminent comprehensive reform.

Recent executive actions signal federal interest in the governance of college athletics, but executive authority alone cannot create a durable regulatory framework capable of withstanding judicial scrutiny.

Absent legislative intervention, the system remains governed by evolving case law and incremental judicial decisions.

VII. The Necessity of Legitimate Authority

A stable system of governance requires authority that is both legally defensible and practically enforceable.

At present, college football possesses neither.

There are, in effect, only two viable pathways to such authority:
1. Collective bargaining, invoking the nonstatutory labor exemption
2. Congressional action providing limited antitrust protection for agreed-upon rules

Absent one of these, the system will continue to operate in a state of provisional legality, subject to ongoing challenge and revision.

VIII. From Authority to Structure

The proposal advanced in Paper No. 1—a football-specific governing federation—must therefore be understood not merely as an organizational reform, but as a legal necessity.

Any such federation must derive its authority from a framework that can survive judicial scrutiny and command compliance among its participants. Voluntary coordination, without more, will not suffice.

Until that condition is met, college football will remain what it has become: a system governed not by rules, but by the limits of their enforceability.

That condition is not stable. And it will not endure.

When institutions fail, they rarely collapse all at once. They linger—accumulating exceptions, contradictions, and emergency measures—until the rules that once governed them no longer reflect reality. College football has reached that point.

What was once an extracurricular activity governed by an educational association has become a national entertainment enterprise with billion-dollar media contracts, professional labor markets, and constant legal exposure. Yet it remains formally governed by an organization designed for a different era, with different incentives, and a fundamentally different mission. The result is not merely inefficiency or controversy—it is instability.

This paper advances a simple proposition: college football must formally separate from the NCAA and establish its own governing federation. Not as an act of rebellion, but as an act of institutional honesty.

I. The NCAA’s Original Compact Has Been Broken

The NCAA was not designed to govern a professionalized industry. It was created to standardize rules of play, protect athlete safety, and preserve the educational character of college athletics. For decades, that model functioned tolerably well because the underlying facts supported it: limited revenue, regional interest, and genuine amateurism.

Those facts no longer exist.

Major college football now:
- Generates billions in annual media revenue
- Operates year-round recruiting and transfer markets
- Directly shapes professional pipelines
- Exposes its governing body to constant antitrust litigation

The NCAA’s insistence on treating football as an extension of its broader amateur framework has produced a system governed by legal fictions. Eligibility rules are framed as academic safeguards. Compensation limits are described as tradition. Roster restrictions are defended as competitive balance. Courts are increasingly unwilling to accept these explanations—not because judges dislike college sports, but because markets behave the way markets behave.

When governance depends on labels rather than substance, it will not survive scrutiny.

II. Football’s Scale and Risk Are Not Shared by Other Sports

The NCAA’s most fundamental problem is structural: football’s economic and legal realities are not shared by the rest of college athletics.

Football alone:
- Drives the overwhelming majority of revenue
- Bears the greatest injury and liability risk
- Generates the bulk of NIL activity
- Attracts nearly all antitrust scrutiny

Yet its rules are still negotiated and enforced within a system designed to protect non-revenue and Olympic sports. This creates an unavoidable conflict. Rules that may be defensible for cross country or swimming are indefensible when applied to a sport that functions as a national labor market. As we will address in later papers, the current system doesn’t benefit those athletes either.

As a result, football rules are either:
1. So restrictive they invite legal challenge, or
2. So porous they are enforced selectively and inconsistently

Neither outcome serves athletes, schools, or the public.

Separation is not abandonment. It is specialization.

III. Reform From Within Has Failed—Repeatedly

Some argue that college football can be “fixed” from inside the NCAA through better enforcement, clearer guidance, or incremental reform. This argument misunderstands the nature of the problem.

The NCAA is a consensus-based organization whose membership includes hundreds of institutions with fundamentally divergent interests. Football reform requires decisive action, uniform rules, and enforceable labor standards. The NCAA is structurally incapable of delivering those outcomes.

Every recent attempt at internal reform—transfer rules, NIL guidance, eligibility waivers—has followed the same pattern:
- A crisis forces rapid change
- The change is incomplete or internally inconsistent
- Enforcement becomes discretionary
- Litigation follows

This is not a failure of effort or good faith. It is a failure of institutional design.

IV. Separation Is Not Radical—It Is Conservative

The proposal to separate college football from the NCAA is often described as “radical.” In truth, it is conservative in the best sense of the word.

It preserves:
- University affiliation
- Traditional rivalries
- Academic integration
- Non-football sports under the NCAA umbrella

What it rejects is the pretense that one governing body can responsibly regulate both Olympic sports and a quasi-professional football enterprise under the same legal and economic assumptions.

Every mature system adapts by specialization. Higher education does this. Professional sports do this. Even governments do this, by enumerating powers and limiting jurisdiction.

College football has simply failed to do so—until now.

V. The Case for a New Federation

A football-specific federation would not exist to maximize profit or erase tradition. It would exist to restore order.

Its purpose would be to:
- Establish clear, uniform eligibility rules
- Negotiate athlete compensation through collective bargaining
- Create a coherent calendar and transfer system
- Reduce legal exposure through transparent governance
- Allow non-football sports to flourish without distortion

In short, it would align authority with reality.

The alternative—continuing to stretch an outdated framework to cover a fundamentally different enterprise—guarantees further instability. Courts will continue to intervene. Rules will continue to change mid-season. Credibility will continue to erode.

VI. A Moment That Requires Choice

College football now stands at a constitutional moment. It can either continue governing itself through improvisation and exception—or it can acknowledge what it has become and build institutions worthy of that reality.

Secession, in this context, is not an act of defiance. It is an act of responsibility.

The papers that follow will outline what such a federation could look like: its structure, its labor framework, its eligibility rules, and its calendar. But none of that matters unless the first step is taken.

College football must leave the NCAA—not to destroy the game, but to save it.

College football is not broken because its participants lack good intentions. It is broken because the institutions governing it no longer reflect what the sport has become.

What began as a campus activity has evolved into a national entertainment industry with professional-level revenues, labor markets, and legal exposure. Yet it remains governed by a framework designed for a different era—one that depends on legal fictions, inconsistent enforcement, and emergency rulemaking to survive. The result has been instability: constant litigation, annual rule changes, confused stakeholders, and growing mistrust among athletes, schools, and fans alike.

This series proceeds from a simple premise: college football requires a new constitutional order.

Not a collection of temporary fixes. Not another round of guidance memos. But a coherent system of governance that aligns authority with reality, rights with responsibilities, and competition with sustainability.

The essays that follow are modeled loosely on the Federalist Papers—not in style or politics, but in purpose. They seek to explain why the current system cannot endure, what principles should guide reform, and how a new structure could be built without destroying the traditions that make college football worth preserving.

This is not an argument for eliminating college football’s connection to higher education. It is an argument for honesty. The sport now operates as a commercial enterprise layered atop educational institutions. Pretending otherwise has not protected athletes, preserved competitive balance, or reduced legal risk. It has only delayed the inevitable.

Accordingly, this series advances three core propositions:

1. College football must separate from the NCAA and form its own governing federation. This separation would allow non-football sports to remain governed by amateur principles while acknowledging football’s distinct economic and legal reality.

2. The sport must adopt a labor framework grounded in collective bargaining. Stable eligibility rules, compensation standards, and transfer regulations cannot survive antitrust scrutiny unless they are negotiated with the athletes themselves.

3. Reform must be structural, not rhetorical. Rules that depend on selective enforcement, ad hoc waivers, or judicial deference will continue to fail. Durable systems require clear authority, limited powers, and consent of the governed.

Each paper addresses a discrete component of this project: antitrust exposure, governance structure, eligibility rules, athlete compensation, transfers, draft entry, the competitive calendar, and enforcement. The goal is not to maximize revenue or impose uniformity for its own sake, but to restore order, legitimacy, and trust.

Reasonable people may disagree with particular proposals. That is expected. But the status quo is no longer defensible. College football stands at a moment that demands more than incremental reform.

It demands a framework worthy of the game.