Separating college athletic programs from the colleges they represent has been considered a capitulation, a surrender, like legalizing drugs because they can’t be controlled. But this may be the only option left.

WRIGHTSVILLE BEACH (February 10, 2025) – There are four verities in big-time college sports today.

1. No one—including the inaudible college presidents, coaches, and the increasingly irrelevant NCAA—knows what may happen next, except that college sports will continue to expand their professionalization and commercialization.
2. Few people like it, aside from the blue-chippers who benefit from the Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) payments.
3. The top dozen athletic programs will significantly strengthen their economic advantages within the next 3 to 5 years. Most already boast the largest NIL deals for athletes. 

The recent College Football Playoffs enjoyed high TV ratings while the minor bowls endured poor attendance and gate receipts. The Gator Bowl, for example, customarily attracts over 50,000 fans but only 31,000 attended last December. The minor bowls have depended historically on gate receipts.

4. Legal sports betting has quickly become a ubiquitous, $10 billion operation, both at the college and professional levels. This excludes the much larger illegal gambling, including gambling with bookies, “skill games” in bars, truck stops, and liquor stores, and online casinos.

Image generated by ChatGPT

The transfer portal and Name, Image, Likeness (NIL)

At the heart of the confusion—and disgust—are the pay-for-play called NIL and the unprecedented ability of athletes to transfer or to change schools.

Regarding NIL, it’s ironic university benefactors are being asked to donate NIL money for teenagers who make more than they do.

And pay disputes have begun: basketball players at Florida State sued their coach for allegedly failing to disburse NIL payments. The coach, Leonard Hamilton, will resign after this season, joining other prominent coaches like Tony Bennett (Virginia) and Nick Saban (Alabama) who have taken the “retirement portal” in the last year. 

Coaches and boosters are now managing, sort of, the pay-for-play NIL while university presidents and the NCAA stand to the side. What happens when universities, and not the NIL “collectives” or coaches, officially begin this year to manage NIL for players and sharing revenues? More lawsuits are surely coming.

The “transfer portal” is uncontrolled free agency. Contracts in professional sports limit the ability of players to move from team to team at will. But like manic hummingbirds, college athletes today transfer from school to schoolwith no restriction or compunction. 

Attempts will be made to limit free agency. Player contracts could slow transfer trends, but universities may not enforce violations and some athletes may be unwilling to sign multi-year deals that constrict their options.

Academics

An unbridgeable chasm between athletics and academics has been a major consequence. Academics and college sports have historically suffered a tortured relationship but pay-for-play and transfer policies make it more difficult for athletes to earn degrees.

The unhinged growth of athletic conferences—with member institutions thousands of miles apart—further contributes to academic challenges due to senseless travel schedules.

Gambling

Sports gambling has become commonplace in college and pro sports and mobile devices greatly facilitate it. Baseball’s legendary Pete Rose, kicked out of baseball for betting on games, is turning cartwheels in his grave. 

Rather oddly, North Carolina directs millions in tax funds to support intercollegiate athletics at 13 regional UNC campuses. This legislative largesse from gambling tax receipts excludes the flagships at Chapel Hill and Raleigh because, as legislators apparently reasoned, larger universities have enough money.

Gambling-generated tax funds for the regional campuses would, it was hoped, spawn economic development and reduce burdensome student fees charged by regional campuses to their fund big-time sports aspirations. However, the costly UNC system student fees for athletics remain unchanged. The tax funds from gambling have been used instead for expanding sports facilities or for higher coaches’ salaries.

Already one UNC campus has been implicated in a national game-fixing scandal. Myriad conflicts of interest and game-fixing dangers exist when gambling is pervasive and when a pay-for-play culture becomes ingrained.

Athletic entrepreneurship

Remarkably, venture capitalists are exploring the “purchase” of athletic departments.  Their argument centers on revenues that big-time athletic departments generate, typically $150-$200 million annually.

But revenues aren’t profits. The very top athletic programs often make more than they spend, but most programs spend 11 cents for every dime they make. Moreover, significant issues of control and decision-making between the venture capitalists and the institutions would likely emerge.

Who’s on first?

Who’s in charge of this muddle?

The absurdly gargantuan athletic conferences have amassed the most power. Their headquarters negotiate television contracts and run tournaments, and they are knowledgeable about legislation and litigation. They have lavishly paid commissioners and staffs replete with lawyers and former coaches. The SEC and the Big Ten conferences are in the best position to drive the process, to the extent it is drivable.

The other conferences, as well as the NCAA and befuddled university presidents and trustees, are trying to hang on to the tiger’s tail without being devoured. In the absence of university leaders capable of managing intercollegiate athletics, college sports will be increasingly defined outside the universities.

The surprise is that it took 10 months since sports betting was legalized by the NC legislature last March for gambling scandals to emerge once again. 

The best option for universities may be to watch the show from a distance. Sports should be divorced from universities and the athletic enterprises should be charged for the use of university names. This is, after all, the current situation, except athletic programs aren’t paying the institutions that enable their fortunes.

Dr. Art Padilla splits his time between homes in Wrightsville Beach and Raleigh. He served as a senior administrator at the University of North Carolina System headquarters and later at NC State, where he was chairman of the Department of Management. He has taught at UNC-Chapel Hill, NC State, and the University of Arizona, winning several teaching awards and recognitions, including the Holladay Medal, the highest faculty honor at NC State. He recently completed the 2nd edition of his book Leadership: Leaders, Followers, Environments.