I don't have a crystal ball, but I suspect college athletics at the Division 1 level as we know it will be unrecognizable in no more than 10 years. Things have changed drastically in the last 10 years as a direct result of TV revenue and conference re-alignment that has destroyed many long standing regional rivalries that fueled student and alumni interest in sports. It is also driving up the costs to universities that have decided they want to have major athletic programs and join the blue bloods (UCONN football anyone?).
I also doubt that major success in sports generates the bounce in enrollment and general fund income to the school that it did five or ten years ago. Many in this generation of college students are not the rabid supporters of their university sports teams that we remember from our days of attending universities. My daughter looks at U of Maryland scores and is interested in how they are doing, but she only goes to games as a social event, not as a rabid fan. My son doesn't pay any attention to sports at his school. I don't think he has attended one sporting event at George Mason in the two years he has been there. Their selection of school had nothing to do with sports. They chose their school on the available programs, the costs, and the potential for future income. Sports success had absolutely nothing to do with it. At the cost of a college education these days, sports teams has little impact on the choice of a college for a majority of students from my personal experience.
Part of the disconnect between students and sports is based on the fact that the general student body and the athletes rarely mix. The top schools have separate dining halls and tutoring sessions for the athletes. You might see one or two athletes in one of your classes but other than walking by a practice field on your way to class you rarely have an opportunity to interact with the Division 1 athlete as a fellow student. They might as well be NFL or NBA players. It was bad enough 40 years ago when I was a student. I at least had a few classes with some of the football players who had real majors. I would suspect it is even more segregated now.
If you go to a game at a Division 1 school these days, students get tickets via a lottery system because the majority of the seats go to alumni or others (boosters) who are willing to pay a seat license fee on top of the ticket prices to attend games. When I went to WVU in the late '70's and early 80's any student could go into a football or basketball game and all they needed was their student ID. Now limiting student accessibility to put paying butts in the seats feeds the void between the student and the student athlete. This is why you don't have the rabid student sections that we were used to (with notable exceptions here and there).
These proposals will potentially help some athletes, but they will further erode the relationship between the general student population and the college athletic teams. I had an English professor who thought that college athletics had become a joke way back in 1980. He figured that it made more sense to have the college host a "professional team in residence" that would generate their own self sustaining revenue. I think that is essentially what Division 1 revenue sports will end up being (you could make the case it already is this way at some schools). Not sure what, if any, impact any of this will have on non-revenue sports and their athletes. I doubt it will help them significantly as there aren't too many endorsement opportunities for the guys and girls on the fencing team, or for the field hockey team for that matter.
It remains to be seen how this ruling will affect the awarding of athletic "scholarships." Will colleges and universities reduce their offers of student aid to athletes based on their earning potential? They already are doing that with "normal" students, basing the aid given on the government's determination (FAFSA) of what resources the student and his family have to put toward the cost of education.
As has been said many times, no one wants to see how the sausage is made. I am afraid the making of this sausage moving forward could get really ugly.
