I read your comments. I read all of them.
Every time I post an article about college football, I scroll down to the comments section to see what the readers are talking about.
And it doesn’t matter if the article is about Dabo Swinney going down with the ship at Clemson or Texas Tech’s stiffest competition in the Big 12, the majority of the comments are always the same.
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“Who cares? NIL has ruined the sport anyway.”
Most of the time, I just roll my eyes and move on with my day.
College football is my favorite sport, and although NIL and unlimited player movement — among other things — has made the sport more of a headache to follow, I will still gleefully park my butt in front of my television on Saturday morning and try to soak up as many games as I can.
This latest development, however, may have me joining the doomsday prophets in the comments section.
The Georgia Bulldogs played a game against an overmatched opponent this past Saturday. It doesn’t matter who, because they kicked the crap out of them.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS FINALLY BACK AFTER MONTHS OF NCAA LAWSUITS, NIL DRAMA AND CONGRESSIONAL FIGHTS
After the game, the football team’s official X account posted a teaser trailer for their week one highlight film, complete with a link to go see the whole thing.
There was just one problem: the video is behind a $20 paywall.
The worst part is that the link doesn’t even take fans to the UGA athletic department’s website, but rather a third-party site called Glory Glory.
Glory Glory is described as “a fan-first ecosystem designed to capture and share exclusive content, deliver unparalleled access to UGA athletics, and inspire deeper levels of engagement.”
In layman’s terms (at least how I understand it), you pay money to this site which then goes towards the players’ NIL funds, and in turn, the fans get team-related content and access.
Judging by the comments underneath the video, this is a nearly universally reviled practice, and I can’t blame them.
Where does it end?
HERE’S WHY, EVEN WITH ALL ITS PROBLEMS, COLLEGE FOOTBALL IS STILL BETTER THAN THE NFL
We have rev share. We have NIL collectives. We even have places like Tennessee implementing “talent fees” on season tickets that go towards, you guessed it, NIL.
This is all in addition to millionaire and billionaire boosters footing large portions of the NIL bill as it stands.
None of this is sustainable, and it’s why places like the federal government have become battlegrounds to try and “save college sports.”
No one likes this, yet it will continue to happen.
I can’t see myself ever losing my love for college football; I’m too indoctrinated at this point.
I am, what many would call, a “sicko.”
But a large portion of fans are already becoming disillusioned with the sport, and it’s things like Georgia’s paywall tactic that are inflicting the bulk of the damage.
The death of college football may happen by way of “death by 1,000 papercuts,” and we are already a couple hundred cuts deep.
Time to stop the bleeding before the greatest sport on earth becomes a husk of its former self, if it isn’t already too late.
