Portal and NIL destroying the spirit and tradition of colllege football

[Utah#1]

DeBoer leaves UW for Bama, Fisch leaves AZ for UW, and players jumping ship left and right like crazy, conference(s) get or getting destroyed (Pac-12, ACC and eventually Big-12) and fans hearts get broken by lack of loyalty for their football programs where some level of selfishness and greed take over.

[RedUte14]

i don’t think the coaching carousel has much to do with NIL and Portal.

[NashvilleUte]

Agreed. Everything else seems to be a result of NIL and the portal, but the coaching carousel is no different than it was before.

[GameForAnyFuss]

I keep hearing how the portal and NIL are destroying college football. So why isn’t it showing in ticket sales and TV ratings? Everything I’ve seen says that college football is as popular as ever.

I’m curious to get a couple questions answered by some of you who say that the portal and NIL are ruining college football: If the portal and NIL are ruining football, why are you still watching? And how bad would it have to get in order for you to stop watching?

[Jim Vanderhoof]

My question to you. Do you think the portal and NIL is good for college football? I personally don’t like it. I’ve had season tickets since the early seventies. My tickets go up every year. 50 50 on renewing.

The ratings are high on tv because it’s free!! If you had to pay for streaming to watch games ratings would drop. Plus the population has grown each year which will increase numbers. I see a lot of empty stadiums. Fall weather tailgating and being outside with friends and family are unique to college football. My dad always said “ if it ain’t broke don’t fix it”. What are we fixing?

[GameForAnyFuss]

No, I don’t think NIL and the portal (in their current form) are good for college football. Or any other sport, for that matter. I think there are changes that could make NIL and the portal work, but this current “wild west” approach isn’t working.

Now back to my questions, if you don’t mind.
1. Why are you still watching? Why do you continue to buy tickets in spite of NIL and the portal?
2. How much worse would it have to get for you to no longer be a fan of college football?

[Jim Vanderhoof]

Good questions! I have been going to Utah games since the 60s with my dad. 70’s going to school. Took my daughters and now my grandkids. It’s been a fun family tradition. Season tickets were cheap and fall weather to tailgate is the best. That’s why I still go because of the above and because it’s a high quality program.

My 4 tickets are well over 5,000. Retired on fixed income so cost is getting to much. As I go my family tradition will go. You followed players freshman to seniors. Now you follow portal. Those are things that might put me over top to loose interest some but I will always be a fan of the Utes!!

[GameForAnyFuss]

If I hear you correctly, you’re saying that the tradition of college football is what keeps you coming back despite the problems being caused by NIL and the portal. And you keep it going because you want to pass those traditions along to your posterity.

That’s a great answer – I respect that a ton. And I suspect you’re not the only one who would answer that way.

Personally I follow the teams/sports I follow because they keep me entertained. I get excited to watch them play, and I have fun watching them play. When I stop finding a team/sport entertaining, I stop watching it. The good news for me is that college football (and other college sports) is still entertaining, even though NIL and the portal have made player rotations happen much faster. So even though Utah is basically fielding a whole new team each year, I still love watching them play, so I’m still a fan.

[Stone]

I am still watching, because of my loyalty to the Utes, but I can feel my interest waning. Frankly, the move to the Big12 will be telling for me. I do think my interest in the games next year will be significantly less than this year. Bowl games do not really interest me anymore (they did at one time). I used to watch a lot of college football – many non-Utah games. Now, I only watch Utah games. I think my love of college football is on life support. What would make it fully die, I do not know for sure, but it will be sad when it does (and it is headed that direction).

Although not triggered by NIL, my love of Utah basketball, and college basketball, died about a decade ago. I still sort of like it, but I used to be very passionate about it. No more. My point being that there is a precedent for my fandom to wither.

[Utegator]

I’m with you here. I only watch Utah football now. I used to get excited for a full saturday of college football kicked off with college game day, now I have other things to do with my time.

[EagleMountainUte]

Haha cute. As if it wasn’t broken before that.

Does it really bother you that the people sucking up the money previously have to pay players?

Spirit and tradition of what before then? Loyalty. Please.

[Central Coast Ute]

The problem here is the univerties that are sucking up the money from CFB aren’t paying the players. Some guy on X even told Ute fans that aren’t donating to the Crimson Collective that they’re part of the problem after JJ entered the portal. The fans, alumni and businesses are paying it. Why should fans pay college football players when they’re already spending tons of money on gear, tickets, cable packages, etc.? Not everyone has that kind of expendable income, especially to pay a kid that hasn’t played a snap and might leave next year anyway.

The players should be paid, but it should be by the university, not the fans.

[Jim Vanderhoof]

NIL makes college sports professional. Paying players with free agency (transfer portal). Can you imagine the NFL with no salary cap and a free agency portal. The biggest complaint from scholarship athletes in the past was time commitment and inability to work for spending money.

Instead of paying a few players millions why not give each player on scholarship a thousand dollars a month to go with tuition, room and board. Keep amateur athletics in tact. Spending is out of control and not sustainable.

[Central Coast Ute]

I think the monthly stipend is bigger than $1000/month. Not sure about that though

[UteBacker]

My limit is when USC talks Rising, Kuithe, & Barton into coming down to L.A. and the Big Ten to join a super-team. We’ve been on the positive side of this NIL and transfer portal thing so far. I’m not sure how long it will last.

[Utah#1]

Their mad because Utah owns them! So they gotta try and circumvent the program by trying to lure away our coaches and players. LOL

[Utah]

The good news is we will usually come ahead most of the time.

[CityCreekUte]

100% the people reshaping the world of college football are destroying it so they can build it up to be the money making machine they want it to be. And which btw, they are doing an absolute helluva job doing.

TV money doesn’t care about teams, players, coaches, schools or any of it. They care about eyeballs and selling commercials. If the stadium is empty they won’t show it. If it’s ugly they won’t show it. No big deal. There are workarounds.

Yes a full and full-throated stadium is appealing. It’s just not worth as much to them as it is the school.
Yes a compelling player or coach storyline is appealing. It’s just not worth as much as as winning here and now with whoever gets off the bus. Bowl games are an impediment. Cratering them is part of the plan. Just as much as regional conferences are. TV is if not global definitely national so a conference better be performant across the whole nation. We don’t care if your conference name contains Southeastern or Pacific if you have eyeballs from coast to coast. On the other hand if your conference is called American and nobody watches then go to hell.

The NCAA is embodied by some of the politics lately about why do former professors end up becoming presidents of multi-billion dollar universities (read corporations) They, and especially the “tradionalist” ones, are so far out of their league they don’t even know they are in one.