People arguing that players should just go to the CFL or whatever are right in the sense that players can "opt out" of the current system. But their position ignores the enormous, uncompetitive barriers put in place specifically by the pro leagues to control salaries. I don't know much about the history of the anti-trust suits against these professional leagues but the arrangements seem horribly one-sided and prevent players from entering and competing in a marketplace.
I think a lot of the problems with the NCAA that Bilas seems to have, would be criticisms better levied against the NBA's absurd 1 and done policy and the NFL's absurd 3 year rule. Baseball has its own problems (luxury tax, hard slotting of salaries in the draft, their international budget and the push for a world draft) and is getting worse in terms of uncompetitive moves by owners to stifle potential player earnings. But the H.S. OR 3 years of college with the teams responsible for funding and maintaining their own minor league systems is a much better model. The NBA could easily do this by expanding their D-League structure.
The NFL is a bit harder and NCAA football is much more entrenched and the money/infrastructure involved is much more likely to prevent a seamless move to the MLB model. But the NFL partnering with the BCS-AQ conferences seems like something to explore. Unfortunately, between the O'Bannon/NCAA lawsuit and the NFL's concussion lawsuit this may not be a good time to potentially put a bunch of assets on the books in some kind of merger.
I take no issue with players leaving early for the pros or bypassing the whole college process to enter the pros. I think it's messed up for a fan to have the mentality of "No you can't leave early because then
everyone will leave early and that will dilute
my college football viewing experience." Now having said that, I say let the kids take their shot in either an NFL minor league (which is unlikely to happen because the NFL wants to save bucks) or alternatively, let them go to the big boy league if that's what they want to do.
I think it's obvious why the NFL would not be in favor of this, for the reasons you mentioned above, but that, to me, seems like it's not the NCAA's problem. The NCAA, in and of itself, has a system set up that affords high school graduates to choose to go to college for free (with other benefits) in return for playing college football and promoting the college football team. That just does not seem like exploitation to me. When the spotlight is directed at the NFL, it does ("you're not old enough to choose to play
because we can't really afford it").
Thoughts KK? Have I missed the mark?
