Paper No. 1 — The Case for Change
Why the current structure of college football can no longer sustain the system it governs.
“If men were angels, no government would be necessary.”
— James Madison
College football has outgrown the system that governs it.
What was once a regional, school-based activity has become a national enterprise. It commands enormous audiences, generates billions in revenue, and serves as the primary development pathway for professional football. The scale of the enterprise is no longer in question.
What is in question is whether the structure surrounding it still makes sense.
The current model rests on a set of assumptions that no longer reflect reality. It treats major college football as an extension of a broader amateur framework, governed by an organization designed for a different purpose, at a different time, under very different conditions.
Those conditions have changed. The structure has not.
This paper advances a simple claim: the existing system is no longer sustainable—not because it lacks resources or interest, but because it lacks a coherent and enforceable framework for governance.
I. An Enterprise That Has Changed in Kind
College football did not become something new all at once. It evolved gradually, and for a long time the underlying structure absorbed that change without breaking.
That is no longer the case.
At the highest level, the sport now operates as a national business. Media contracts run into the billions. Recruiting is continuous. Player movement is constant. Legal scrutiny is no longer occasional; it is a persistent feature of the landscape.
None of this is especially controversial. It is simply the current state of the sport.
What remains controversial is the idea that a system built for a different model of college athletics can continue to govern it effectively.
II. A Structure Built on Outdated Assumptions
The NCAA was not designed to regulate a commercial enterprise of this scale. Its original purpose was more limited: to standardize rules, promote safety, and preserve the educational character of college athletics.
For many years, that model held together because the underlying assumptions were broadly accurate. Revenue was modest. Competitive balance was easier to maintain. The distinction between amateur and professional sport was more clearly understood.
Those assumptions have eroded.
Today, major college football functions with many of the characteristics of a professional system, while remaining formally governed as something else. The result is a framework that depends on definitions and labels that no longer carry the weight they once did.
Courts have begun to recognize this. Participants have adapted to it. The system itself has not.
III. The Consequences of Misalignment
When structure and reality diverge, the effects are not always immediate. For a time, the system can continue operating through workarounds—exceptions, reinterpretations, and incremental adjustments.
Over time, those adjustments accumulate.
Rules become harder to interpret. Enforcement becomes less consistent. Outcomes depend more on circumstance than on a clearly defined framework.
What emerges is not a system that has adapted, but one that is increasingly difficult to administer.
This is the present condition of college football. The formal rules remain in place, but they no longer fully describe how the system operates in practice.
IV. The Limits of Incremental Reform
It is often suggested that the current system can be stabilized through incremental reform—clearer guidance, improved enforcement, or modest adjustments to existing rules.
There is some appeal to that approach. It preserves continuity and avoids the disruption associated with more significant change.
The difficulty is that the underlying problem is not one of clarity or execution. It is structural.
The organization responsible for governing college athletics is asked to regulate activities that differ fundamentally in scale, economics, and legal exposure. Football is not simply another sport within that system. It is the central driver of its most significant challenges.
Adjusting individual rules does not resolve that tension. It leaves the core misalignment in place.
V. The Case for Separation
A more durable solution requires a different approach.
Rather than continuing to force major college football into a framework that no longer fits, the sport can be governed through a structure designed specifically for its characteristics.
Separation, in this sense, is not a rejection of the broader collegiate model. It is an acknowledgment that different activities require different forms of governance.
Under such a model, football would operate within its own framework—one capable of addressing issues of compensation, movement, and competitive structure directly. Other sports would remain within a system more closely aligned with their own economic and competitive realities.
This approach does not diminish the role of universities or the connection between athletics and education. It recognizes that those relationships can be maintained even as governance structures evolve.
VI. A Question of Alignment
The central issue is not whether college football should change. It already has.
The question is whether its governance will reflect that change.
A system of this scale cannot rely indefinitely on assumptions that no longer hold. Over time, the gap between formal structure and actual practice becomes too large to sustain.
At that point, the system must adjust.
VII. Conclusion
College football remains one of the most successful enterprises in American sport.
Its popularity is undiminished. Its economic strength is clear. Its cultural significance remains substantial.
Those strengths, however, do not resolve the underlying problem. They make it more important to address.
The system that governs the sport was built for a different version of it. That version no longer exists.
The task is not to discard what works, but to align governance with reality.
The papers that follow consider how that alignment might be achieved—through changes to authority, structure, and incentives.
The starting point is simply to recognize the problem for what it is.
A system that no longer fits the enterprise it governs cannot endure indefinitely.