Actually College Football is more popular that the NFL
This was actually never true. Some people perceived it to be true, because it was close in certain areas of the country.
But now it isn’t even close to being true and there is an interesting parallel to look at as to why when it comes to European football.
In creating near complete free agency with unchecked NIL funds (and yes, some of these high school kids are being paid more to join amateur colleges than many PL teams paid for their best player), and the whole portal saga every minute … the game is in actual jeopardy.
There were always kids getting paid in one way or the other, and they may not have cared nearly as much about the University as you the fan did, but now they aren’t even going through the pretenses.
A star player could play for a school one year, and then sign for their arch rival the next because the deals better.
The problem with this is that it is NOT the NFL. Without the pretenses and the emotional pageantry, it is just very, very average quality amateur football. It’s so watered down with schools it’s not even a proper farm league.
This is why the Superleague would have been a disaster: not because there aren’t ways the PL and Europe can be reformed to become better and more profitable, but because it sought to do so in a completely stupid way that would have ruined a large part of the draw that made people want to spend money in the first place.
First key; you NEED to k ow what you are.
One kid was like: “This a profession, it’s work for me”
Except he’s not good enough to play in the league, and that mass hallucinatory drama that we attach emotionally to some of the most significant years of our lives, is the only reason people are willing to give him A dollar, much less lots of them.
My check to my Alma Mater normally goes to a program for housing for underfunded students and to the Athletic department. It was specifically earmarked for upgrades to the physics department this year for the second part
Point being: there was a way to compensate the players more publicly, continue to compensate them not so openly, improve insurance, while continuing to grow and cash in on the thing people love.
When Roger Goodell announced in (2010?) that he was going to grow by a truly astronomical number in less than 15 years, he didn’t do it by completely changing the NFL.
He did it by understanding what he had, what worked, and how much leverage he truly brought to the table.
First step would be the FA understanding UEFA needs them more than they need UEFA, and they aren’t going to retard the growth of their product to mollify failing business models.