We’ve been pretty direct in the past about our disbelief in American college football, thanks to its blatant corruption since at least the early 2000s. As the disastrous NIL era continues, we are going to see more and more players transferring to different schools for more money. So be it; but that will put the control of the sport into divisions of the haves and have nots. This will create a different hierarchy than currently exists.

Instead of the Power 5 conferences, even, there might become a situation like the English Football League—with tiers, promotion, relegation, etc. The haves would be in the upper tiers of the sport; the have nots would be in the lower tiers. This idea has been floated around for years now; it is not new, but it’s certainly closer to being a reality now, for sure. That might help with attendance throughout the sport, though, all around.

But what if the sport then evolves into something like the Akufo League?! That cannot be a good thing for a lot of reasons; we’re making an admitted slippery-slope argument here, but one thing always leads to another when a shit ton of money is involved. Eventually, certain name-brand schools will start thinking like Edwin Akufo and then destroy the EFL model if it was adopted for college football. What a disaster!

That development would be a long way off, and maybe we’d be deceased by then—so who cares? Well, future generations of college students and alumni will care if we don’t do the right thing right now. This isn’t like climate change, where the choices are minimal and obvious. There are a myriad of directions this all could go in the next decade-plus. It will be interesting to see how it goes, but the current model won’t last.

Mark it down.