The athletes affiliation with a particular college or university is a constant, and does not change.
Generic minor league football is what Power 5 college football has been for decades, is the problem that we're just not allowed to call it that?
What rubicon is being crossed by simply admitting that is the status quo right now, regardless of whether or not players have their economic freedom wholly restricted by a body (the NCAA) which profits from their labor?
This is narrative vs. real life. The B1G is similarly a sports factory, and all schools still prioritize academics.
No, academics is not "torched" by the ability to transfer.
Agnostic of football, 23% of students with no sports affiliation transfer schools before the end of their first four years.
Transfers are common and its not your purview to restrict who can go where and for what reason.
That's certainly a choice, but I'm still left wondering what the trigger is for people to have their interest diminished in the sport beyond athletes earning money?
Perhaps the premise that all athletes have an emotional connection and attachment to the school they play for?
Fans feel slighted that athletes don't have the same fandom for "tradition" and the university which fans feel?
Either way, college football is more popular now than it has ever been before.
In September, the University of Michigan received a $30 million grant for chemistry from the National Science Foundation to bring nature’s efficiency and flexibility to advanced materials and additive manufacturing (chemistry).
This is kind of like someone saying their interest in chemistry is diminished because the university has become a minor league for government.
Athletics is by far the most popular extra curricular of Power 5 schools and has historically been the biggest driver of investment and donations. So much so that most schools have faced the decades long question of how to match the enthusiasm for athletics donations to other parts of the university:
We must consider how to broaden and bolster engagement so that what we offer in our classrooms is as attractive to donors as our athletics.
universitybusiness.com
People by and large want to throw massive sums into athletics at these schools, the problem is the ivory-tower elites don't want to share that wealth with the players.