I personally have not viewed Power 5 football as "generic minor league." Though I would agree it appear to be moving in that direction rapidly.
Just to be clear, I'm not arguing that any player movement should be restricted. I'm simply saying that it reduces my level of interest personally. Obviously, you and others feel differently. It isn't and never has been a bright-line "Rubicon" issue for me as a fan. It's a matter of degrees. In essence, how close is the association between the team, it's players, and the school/state itself?
It used to be that players on a given team were overwhelmingly local/state-based kids. So when you were cheering for, say, Ohio State, you were cheering largely for Ohio kids. That has eroded over time as out of state recruiting has become ubiquitous, which to some extent has and does reduce my feeling of connection to the team in comparison to what it was 40 years ago.
I'd feel differently if I were an alumni, or if my kids attended the school, but that's not the case.
Anyway, player free agency further removes the association between the players and the school/state, so that even recruited out of state players are no longer "adopted sons", but rather just temporary hired guns who may scoot to another school from year to year. For me personally, that reduces my interest in watching because I don't care to watch minor leagues. Just as I'd rather watch the my local high school v. an AAU team in basketball. I just have no reason to care about AAU ball.
I'm not advocating restricting anyone. I'm just saying it reduces my interest in watching and rooting for a particular school, or even the sport in general. And the only reason I bring that up at all is because you asked the question of why some people care about player free agency. It's akin to why I may watch the Olympics but couldn't care less about professional track and field. Olympians aren't getting paid to play in the Olympics - it's simply representing the country.
No, it isn't. The question is to which aspect of the university do private donors care to donate their own personal funds. And ridiculing people because they choose not to donate to individual professional athletes seems extraordinarily odd to me. Especially when it isn't just about enabling students to participate in athletics, but rather how many hundreds of thousands or millions they should be paid by donors to attract the best players who likely have NFL futures. It's almost literally saying people are expected to just hand their own money directly to a particular college athlete before they head to the NFL.
I suppose if they're a huge fan and want their team to get all the best players, and they have the disposable income, then sure. But if not...why should they pony up that money?
Are you saying that it is the "ivory-towered elites" who currently pour money into college athletics? Because I don't think that's true at all, and it doesn't explain why the highest tier schools academically tend not to be the most successful in terms of football and basketball. You don't see Ivy League alumni and supporters throwing tens of millions into NIL to buy players. And I suspect that's the issue at Michigan as well. The wealthiest alumni aren't interested in buying the best players.
