I'm not sure who the little guys are. To some, it seems that the little guys are the athletes. To others, the little guys are athletic departments that are being frozen out by conference realignment (like Wazzu, OrSt. and the schools in the Big XII and former Pac-12 left behind in this new Big XII). But to others, the little guys are the G5 that has long been shut out of the CFP. And to Florida State, Florida State is the little guy--fighting against ESPN, SEC, and even ACC leadership. And then again, perhaps the biggest little guy of them all is the true, longstanding fans of the sport. I can't say that courts and government action have helped most of these little guys, nor will it. But I guess the NIL decisions by the courts has viewed the big time athlete as the little guy against the commercial interests of the sport. I could feel traditional college football slipping away, and there was no government or court action to stop it. This is most noticeable in conference realignment. Both state governments and the feds have been powerless to stop any of these big moves. I am going back a while, but I think these two decisions have been devastating for college football. They have allowed college sports to consolidate money interests (read: form into mega conferences that defy local and regional traditional interests) and put TV executives in charge of the sport. 1. Supreme Court case NCAA vs. U. of Oklahoma, 1984; and 2. conference championship games. 1. This SCOTUS case in my view opened the doors to treating TV broadcasts of collegiate games as a sheer business. I liked what Associate Justice Byron "Whizzer" White (former star RB at University of Colorado BTW) posited in his dissenting opinion: the Court erred by treating the NCAA as a purely commercial and profit-oriented organization. Because the NCAA is uniquely linked to both amateur athletics and higher education, it has been allowed a great deal of leeway in regulation that would be condemned in a purely business environment. He further argued that the NCAA plan “reflects the NCAA’s fundamental policy of preserving amateurism and integrating athletics and education.” Justice William H. Rehnquist joined Justice White in the dissent. 2. The conference championship games have been dreadful for college football. This "13th game" was largely a money grab. Conferences can just grow as large as they want with no round robin play. Not just lame, but it set up poaching from other conferences leaving a trail of destruction in its wake. The SEC was the first to exploit this in the early '90s when it invited Arkansas and South Carolina. Lastly, to come back to your question. I do think modern college athletics has become a business. And I do think the federal government has authority to do something about all this modern craziness under the interstate commerce clause. But I am less confident that they will do the right thing, or even know what the right thing to do is. It is almost like the sport needs an old time commissioner with the power to act in the best interest of the sport in order to save it from itself. And even then, are we talking just about college football, or all of college athletics? Back in the day, Teddy Roosevelt helped save football (from itself). Something similar happened in the sport of soccer in England. This is what is needed. But I'm not sure how we get there. ** Edited by Maroon Baboon at 6/7/2024, 3:27:25 PM