industry is - realistically - derived from the schools' own brands and a few hyper superstar kids like Zion Williamson and Trevor Lawrence. The number of people who REALLY move the needle on getting people to watch is very low -- and by definition nonexistent in non-revenue sports. People are still going to watch UNC-Duke without Zion, and 99.99% of people want whomever they want to win not because of the name on the back of the jersey but because of the front.

The flip side of the coin in trying to portray the student athletes as being screwed over is that for 99%+ of student athletes, they're getting more in value in tuition, books, athlete meals, personal training, etc than they could possibly ever bring to their university in the value of their performance as an athlete. What we're really talking about is a few high profile kids. The fact that many of these kids come from working and lower class backgrounds while the coaches (the other famous people in college athletics) are being paid millions is a bad look. But I'm really not sure how you can equitably fix it and not entirely distort the competitive balance.

Pro leagues have rules to support competitive balance and many have revenue sharing to make up for inherent disadvantages to smaller markets. What could be done in college to support competition?