I am all for college football and always have been. In fact, I prefer it to NFL football. But I see problems with the emerging megaconference landscape.

The rising formula makes sense in terms of markets, and there are certainly big winners financially in big football. Why wouldn’t the University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles leave the PAC-12, high school football’s best conference, for one that promotes competition and, more importantly, offers very large TV deals?

The pact is also mutually beneficial because the Big Ten has now acquired assets in the booming market of Los Angeles. It is corporate genius in a sport that is primarily a business. But if it continues (and it will), college football as we know it will cease to exist. Will fans just be fed another league and players’ careers? Well, most will fatigue.

The current constituents of the NCAA are the Power 5 conferences (Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, ACC, and, increasingly less powerful, the PAC-12), as well as various smaller conferences and a few independents. Programs used to build on the talent they recruited, but when tight transfer regulations gave way, the transfer portal made leaving convenient for talented upstarts like Quinn Ewers to make a name for themselves, as well as for lagging stars like Spencer Rattler to salvage their career.

Since 2021, college players have been able to profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL). In the age of high transferability, this obviously enables high-end players to seek not only the best teams, but also teams which will allow them to make the most money. With high-level players able to move on a yearly basis, the market explodes and the transfer portal essentially becomes free agency. Lower-level players will be out of a scholarship and even mid-level starters will have trouble finding roles in otherwise lucrative situations. Thus, programs no longer need to use recruitment as the only foundation for success. They can now easily manipulate the market to entice stars with promising talent by offering highways to attractive NIL deals.

This problem has already come to fruition at Texas A&M, and it is doubtful that they will be the last school to take those liberties. The fact that performers should be paid is not lost on me. I understand that. But the NCAA is entering dangerous waters by treating a small class of hyper-talented college athletes as professionals.

Talented players will be drawn to profitable programs and profitable programs will be drawn to expansive markets. They will join those conferences that provide a route to them. Likewise, large conferences will look to grow their size by reaching out to profitable programs which will spark an explosion destined to destroy tradition.