Now that college sports let the genie out of the bottle, can it be tamed?

The freewheeling, wild West, almost-anything-goes state of college sports is teetering on the insane. Yet, it’s never been more popular.

As a society, we’re in a blur of contrasting philosophies about playing college sports: College athletes are amateurs and amateurs shouldn’t be paid. College athletes are now very highly paid, but don’t call them employees. College athletes are school employees and should be subject to those rules. And none of this even addresses the monumental change of sports gambling, the multi-billion-dollar industry that has also led to point-shaving and other scandals.

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On the other hand, does any of this matter in today’s world? And is it positive, negative or something else?

The drama of Indiana coming from nowhere to winning the CFP championship is evidence: A glass ceiling broke. The advent of NIL and the transfer portal is messy, but it is arming more and more athletic programs and leveling a field where top brands have dominated for decades.

The genie isn’t going back in the bottle.

The era of players being paid for their name, image and likeness has no salary cap, unlike professional basketball and football, and has free agency for everyone every year — sometimes from day to day. The actual pros — NFL, MLB and NBA — do not operate that way.

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At Utah, the state’s No. 1 high school football recruit in the Class of 2026, Fremont High’s Salesi Moa, committed to Tennessee before switching to Utah. According to Utah athletic director Mark Harlan, Moa was in class at Utah for the winter semester one day in January and then at Michigan with former Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham.

It is absolutely good that athletes receive compensation beyond a scholarship when universities pocket millions off their play from TV contracts, merchandise and ticket sales. It is also encouraging that today’s players have more freedom and agency to choose where to play, because their coaches have that same leeway.

But it’s also a little nuts that once everyone agreed to a $20.5 million cap in revenue sharing for university sport programs, some schools are allegedly exploding compensation above and beyond that number.

It’s tough to see schools like Utah State get pillaged of coaches and athletes for bigger horizons and heavier coin. Last year, Bronco Mendenhall started with 70 new players. He may need to start again with 70 more players the way things are going.

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In recent weeks, a third of all college football players were in the transfer portal.

Many, college football pundits say this current state of affairs is unsustainable.

College sports popularity

Retired CBS College Sports columnist Dennis Dodd disagrees that the current state is unsustainable and points to Indiana’s meteoric rise to the top of college football in just a few years.

What we see, says Dodd, is a great leveling up of the playing field in college sports.

“Indiana had the same access to the players in the portal as everyone else. It’s one thing to spend money — Indiana did, but not as much as you thought, per (head coach Curt) Cignetti,” Dodd posted on social media. “It’s another to coach it up, put it in the right place, and call the right plays.

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“Texas Tech was close. Ole Miss, a mid-major in the SEC, was too. Indiana weaponized the current landscape. Try to catch up. There will be others. Turns out, the portal and NIL weren’t separators. They leveled the playing field. For decades, what Indiana did was not possible. Now Cinderella is driving a Maserati. As messed up as things are off the field, the game has never been more accessible, enjoyable and fun.”

Indeed, both football and basketball enjoyed some of their highest TV ratings in recent memory this past season.

A higher level of play is afield. The storylines are many. The entertainment product is better.

Regular-season football viewership rose about 2% from 2024 to 2025 (using comparable Nielsen Big Data + Panel metrics), with networks like ABC, Fox and ESPN seeing strong gains. ABC was up 19% in some packages, and Fox was up 12% in viewership.

“For decades, what Indiana did was not possible. Now Cinderella is driving a Maserati. As messed up as things are off the field, the game has never been more accessible, enjoyable and fun.”

Dennis Dodd

Key games drew massive audiences, according to Sports Media Watch: Ohio State-Michigan hit 18.4 million viewers (matching NFL averages in some comparisons), and several others exceeded 10-16 million. A record number of games topped 10 million viewers.

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Overall consumption reached new highs, with 179 billion minutes watched in one recent season (up 33% from 2021). Headlines like “College football is chaotic, messy — and more popular than ever” and reports of unmatched historical viewership amid changes like NIL and conference realignment support this.

Non-CFP bowls saw 13% year-over-year increases on ESPN networks, and the sport accounted for more top TV broadcasts than ever.

Lawsuits rule the day

College sports today is the result of lawsuits. Author of “The Godfather,” Mario Puzo, wrote: “One lawyer with a briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with guns.”

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The avalanche of money redirected from universities and the NCAA to athletes began in the early 2000s with two court cases, O’Bannon v. NCAA and NCAA v. Alston.

Those cases were the beginning of what we see now.

And there is a ton of irony, especially locally, to consider in rulings and law as all this has transpired.

Remember in 2019 when the NCAA suspended BYU forward Yoeli Childs nine games because he misunderstood paperwork in signing with an agent before returning to play his senior season? Now almost every star college athlete has an agent.

Remember when the NCAA vacated two seasons of BYU wins, 47 games, from head basketball coach Dave Rose when player Nick Emery received extra benefits from four boosters that Rose and his staff declared they did not know about?

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Now, with NIL, player benefits are piled as high as can be and they’re driving Teslas and Ford Raptor trucks.

Remember in 1988 when the NCAA hired former U.S. Solicitor General and later BYU President Rex Lee to argue NCAA v. Tarkanian before the Supreme Court?

In this case (488 U.S. 179), Lee argued on behalf of the NCAA (the petitioner). The dispute centered on whether the NCAA’s enforcement actions — investigating recruiting violations at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, finding violations involving basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian, recommending sanctions, and urging UNLV to discipline him — constituted “state action” under the 14th Amendment, which would subject the NCAA to due process requirements via 42 U.S.C. § 1983.

The Supreme Court ruled 5–4 in favor of the NCAA, holding that the NCAA did not engage in state action when it enforced its rules against Tarkanian.

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Today, the NCAA has been rendered a toothless sideline referee with a plugged-up whistle.

It is crazy that the NCAA, once a powerful ruling body that governed college sports, has become impotent by lawsuits and court decisions.

Almost anytime an athlete doesn’t like a rule that restricts their ability to earn, transfer or play, you can count on the NCAA or a school being sued.

“The problem was caused by, essentially, judges and the courts,” claimed former BYU athletic director Val Hale, a former vice president at Utah Valley University and economic development director for the state of Utah.

“The NCAA used to be the controlling body. They had power and authority to basically punish those who violated the rules, and we know they were probably excessively diligent, too harsh on things like giving a ride to an athlete who’s walking home in the rain, and they wouldn’t let athletes make money.

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“Ultimately, an athlete sues the NCAA and the court rules in their favor. And now all of a sudden all that history goes out the door. Now, every time an athlete doesn’t like something, they sue. And the courts are now essentially determining the rules, what is and isn’t acceptable. NIL was decided by the courts. The transfer portal was decided by the courts. The NCAA is afraid to do anything.”

Pro models solve college?

Retired Utah athletic director Chris Hill said the two recognized issues are out of control — money and transfers — and, once identified, they need to be tackled and fixed.

“It’s hard to deal with the money because you know you are going to get sued all the time,” Hill told the Deseret News. “But with the portal things, whether it be contracts or whatever, I think there has to be some semblance of order. You go to a school and you leave, fine, God bless you. But you have to pay out of your contract.”

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Hill said he doesn’t understand why universities are so afraid to call athletes employees.

“I don’t know what the downside of that is,” he said, “but for me, and I talk to people at Utah, is that from the beginning of time to the end of time Ohio State can have more than Utah; they can buy any player they want. We can work our tails off to bring Eric Weddle in, coach him up. We don’t want to deny him money, but at the same time, how do we treat it more like the pros? Understand money is involved. Understand employees can move around. So how do you do it so it’s not every year? The NFL doesn’t allow it.”

Calling players employees shouldn’t be a dirty word, said Hill.

“You are not the NFL, but that’s a hell of a well-run business and they have some parameters. The problem is money and moving around, it’s out of control. And that doesn’t happen in any professional sport. The SEC commissioner talks about breaking off and doing their own rules, which would get rid of any antitrust problems, and that makes everything different, but the government is not going to help us with antitrust. That’s not going to happen.”

Hill said it doesn’t help to whine about it, just fix it. Folks are choking over all the little details but they have great pro models out there to fix the big picture. “Can’t we follow that and figure it out? It sounds naive, but that’s what a business is.”

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Revenue share

Just six months into college sports operating with a mandate to spend $20.5 million per school on athlete salaries, it’s already obsolete.

That decision came in what is called the House Settlement, that schools must pay 22% of revenue to athletes, estimated to be $20.5 million per year. In just months, that 22% figure is outdated because the costs of signing players have risen.

Arguing about NIL money — whether it’s fair or not — is moot. It’s here to stay.

As 2026 begins, many college administrators support abandoning the roster spending limit.

During CFP championship week in Miami, Ohio State athletic director Ross Bjork admitted colleges cannot govern the money any longer and should consider an unlimited spend. “I think the cap is too low.”

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Uncapping the market would mean the richest programs would outspend others, right?

Miami athletic director Dan Radakovich said that is already happening. He believes an uncapped market would bring on football rosters at $35 to $40 million and that would become $50 million in a few years.

“The idea of capping compensation has never worked in this industry,” said Radakovich, speaking to Yahoo Sports. “The model we have right now is really difficult to enforce. People who feel like they want to invest should have the ability to invest.”

This idea would doom many programs that don’t have boosters who want to keep investing in NIL and players who leave in a year or two. Other schools simply don’t have enough supporters with deep enough pockets to sustain that.

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Radakovich talks like that would be a natural separation into something else for college sports — those who have it and those who do not.

“Over time, if we have this kind of open system, economics will bring things back to a more normal circumstance,” Radakovich said. “This model would allow this to be fair to those who want to invest and allow the market to settle. It will settle over time. It always has.”

“These ADs understand antitrust law,” according to college sports attorney Mit Winter posting on X.

“You can’t cap athlete compensation w/o an antitrust exemption, via either a federal law or collective bargaining. Neither is happening soon. Capping athlete pay just leads to more lawsuits and under-the-table payments. So uncap the market,” said Winter.

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Of course, Winter is a guy Mario Puzo accurately described — he’s a lawyer.

And that’s not all.

G League players

Now we have NBA players returning to school to play, as witnessed most recently by Alabama’s Charles Bediako. Bediako last played for the Crimson Tide in 2023, and went through the NBA draft process, suiting up in the G League for the Austin Spurs (San Antonio), the Grand Rapids Gold (Denver Nuggets) and Motor City Cruise (Detroit Pistons).

Now a judge says he can play for ’Bama. The NCAA says nope.

Bediako just received a temporary restraining order to avoid NCAA rules, making him immediately eligible to play for Alabama — three years removed from his previous college playing days.

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This directly conflicted with an NCAA ruling on his case that stated, “Mr. Bediako signed three NBA contracts after competing in college for two seasons. The NCAA has not and will not grant eligibility to any prospective or returning student-athletes who have signed an NBA contract. Eligibility rules ensure high school students get a shot at earning scholarships, and we will continue to consistently apply and defend these rules.”

Then a court said, “Hold my beer, he’s playing.”

This is prima facie evidence of what’s broken in college sports — lawsuits.

And this is where college sports needs a fix, some direction, a kind of czar to control it.

As Arkansas coach John Calipari put it: “Why would a coach recruit and develop an American high school kid for four years when the system now rewards grabbing ready-made pros from overseas, the G League, or the NBA pipeline? If we don’t fix this, we’re killing the entire purpose of college sports.”

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Opines ESPN’s Dan Wetzel: “Well, we are living in the comical chaos that occurred when the NCAA and its various leaders — conference commissioners, university presidents, athletic directors and coaches — focused solely on trying to stop NIL payments and slept through the looming crisis of preserving the right to determine eligibility.”

If this is a trend, how much imagination does it take to see college football teams signing players from NFL practice squads?

Shannon Terry, CEO and founder of on3Sports and 247Sports, believes this issue may just be what is needed.

“This is both good and bad for college sports,” Terry posted on X. “Unfortunate, but the faster the NCAA crumbles, the sooner we’ll get to a real solution: Conferences forming a new association, partnering with rights holders and athletes under a collective bargaining agreement. This is another major blow, but a step nonetheless.”

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UConn athletic director David Benedict told ESPN he’s imploring the NCAA to take a stand on these eligibility issues, where NCAA rules are being thrown out by judges.

“If legally, we can’t control or impose NCAA rules in terms of who can play and who can’t, based on a legal decision, the NCAA still has the right to determine what games count toward the NCAA Tournament. And what games don’t count.

“The NCAA has deemed (Bediako) ineligible. Fine, he can play (on a judge’s ruling). It doesn’t mean the games need to count towards the NCAA Tournament. Otherwise, throw away the rule book and set it on fire. There are no rules.”

This is exactly what Kentucky basketball coach Mark Pope told media this past week: “The NCAA may lose in court, but they still get to decide who makes the NCAA Tournament. Use that to bring some sanity to the situation,” said Pope.

Private equity

Utah’s groundbreaking partnership with private equity firm Otro Capital came days before football coach Kyle Whittingham announced his departure to Michigan. It seeks to create a for-profit called Utah Brand Initiatives to manage sponsorships, ticketing, NIL and multimedia. Utah Brands Initiative will be the majority interest holder.

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Will it work?

The benefits include greater financial stability and access to funds to cover the expenses of running an athletic department, help meet the $20.5 million annual revenue-sharing cap, enhance NIL and athlete compensation, and bring expertise from money-makers on how to maximize revenue growth.

Utah CFO Anthony Wagner said it was “the difference between surviving and thriving.” It could mean more scrutiny for inflated staff and coaching salaries to throw money toward recruiting top talent and NIL demands from a third-party looking to maximize investments, according to sports economist David Carter.

This might be a lifeline for many Power Four programs to maintain a competitive attack on today’s challenges.

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The risks?

A private equity’s profit-driven nature could clash with college sports’ educational mandate at a public university like Utah, where taxpayer funds are involved.

Although a minority investor, private equity firms prioritize returns, which could lead to a short-term focus on the cash cows like football at the expense of other sports. It could lead to a spike in ticket and licensed memorabilia. In short, it might cost more to be a Utah fan, especially with poor attendance at basketball games.

ESPN’s Dan Wetzel said it is a “spending problem fix” that could lead to “uncomfortable conversations about cutting expenses” with nonprofitable divisions. There will be landmines and risks and possible Title IX program cuts, reductions and legal equity challenges.

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If Utah’s revenue sources don’t perform, it could be seen as a “payday loan,” according to PE expert Mark Bernstein, and the chips could be called in by the PE. This could lead to drastic measures, cuts, alienating some boosters and a fallout with taxpayers.

What is the fix?

“Order provides the stabilities that we crave, but chaos creates the opportunities for change that we need. … Those who are waiting for internal order will be the subjects of external chaos, those who yield to internal chaos will be the architects of a new order.” ― T.J. Kirk

College sports needs a commissioner with clout, an entity who can enforce the rules with power. He can be governed by a commission like the NCAA, but whatever entity this is needs to be backed up by laws that Congress implements for judges to follow.

“If Congress can find a way to pass some laws that will hold up in court, that gives authority back to an entity, whether it be the NCAA or a commissioner approved by the courts. The transfer portal and NIL were approved by the courts. That is what is needed,” according to Hale, the former BYU athletic director.

“The NCAA is afraid to do anything, because they’re afraid they’re going to get sued. They know they’re going to get sued, and athletes know that if they don’t like a rule, just take it to court,” Hale continued. “And the courts have been willing, in most cases, to basically uphold the athletes’ rights, rather than the NCAA.

“And so, in my mind, the only way this is taken care of is if Congress can find a way to pass some laws that will hold up in court that give authority back to an entity, whether it be the NCAA or a commission to set the rules and punish people who violate the rules.

“Right now, there’s nobody out there that does that, and I think a commissioner would be a great idea, but that commissioner has to know that when he or she enforces the rules, creates the rules, the courts won’t overturn them.”