If you had to divide responsibility, it might look something like this:

TV networks & media partners (largest influence)

Television money transformed college football from a regional sport into a national entertainment business.

Conference realignment largely followed media rights value rather than geography or tradition.

Kickoff times, expanded schedules, and the pursuit of bigger brands all reflected television economics.

University presidents and athletic directors

They approved conference moves, signed media deals, expanded budgets, and chased revenue.

Nobody forced schools to leave historic rivalries behind—they generally concluded it was financially worthwhile.

Conference commissioners

Commissioners aggressively competed for schools and TV contracts.

Expansion by conferences like the SEC and Big Ten created pressure for everyone else to respond.

The NCAA

For years, it resisted adapting to changing legal realities around athlete compensation.

Court losses eventually led to rapid changes (such as NIL and transfer rules) rather than gradual reforms.

Politicians and courts

Laws, lawsuits, and judicial decisions reshaped the rules governing athlete compensation and mobility.

Many of these changes reflected broader legal principles rather than an attempt to redesign college football.

Boosters and collectives

Wealthy donors became much more influential through NIL funding.

At some schools, recruiting has become closely tied to organized donor-backed collectives.

Coaches

Coaches often pursued higher salaries and changed jobs frequently.

Many also advocated for rules that benefited their programs.

That said, they generally operated within systems created by universities and conferences.

Players

Players used transfer opportunities and NIL rights that became legally available to them.

From their perspective, many simply sought compensation and freedom comparable to what coaches had long enjoyed.

They're probably the least convincing answer if the question is "who ruined college football," because they didn't create most of the structural incentives.

Fans

Fans have mixed responsibility.

They complained about commercialization while simultaneously watching more games, buying streaming packages, supporting realignment when it benefited their school, and donating to NIL efforts.

So who bears the most responsibility?

If "ruined" means:

Loss of regional conferences and rivalries: mostly university leaders, conference commissioners, and TV networks.

NIL and the transfer portal: primarily decades of NCAA policy followed by court decisions and state legislation—not the players themselves.

Commercialization: TV money, athletic departments, and university leadership.

Arms race in spending: everyone participated once the incentives were in place.

The biggest theme is that college football wasn't "ruined" by one villain. It evolved because nearly every stakeholder responded rationally to financial, legal, and competitive incentives. Television companies wanted valuable content, schools wanted revenue, conferences wanted leverage, coaches wanted better jobs, players wanted compensation, boosters wanted championships, and fans kept watching. The current landscape is the cumulative result of all those incentives interacting over several decades.

Edited July 21Jul 21 by Antione2713

34 minutes ago, Antione2713 said:

If you had to divide responsibility, it might look something like this:

TV networks & media partners (largest influence)

Television money transformed college football from a regional sport into a national entertainment business.

Conference realignment largely followed media rights value rather than geography or tradition.

Kickoff times, expanded schedules, and the pursuit of bigger brands all reflected television economics.

University presidents and athletic directors

They approved conference moves, signed media deals, expanded budgets, and chased revenue.

Nobody forced schools to leave historic rivalries behind—they generally concluded it was financially worthwhile.

Conference commissioners

Commissioners aggressively competed for schools and TV contracts.

Expansion by conferences like the SEC and Big Ten created pressure for everyone else to respond.

The NCAA

For years, it resisted adapting to changing legal realities around athlete compensation.

Court losses eventually led to rapid changes (such as NIL and transfer rules) rather than gradual reforms.

Politicians and courts

Laws, lawsuits, and judicial decisions reshaped the rules governing athlete compensation and mobility.

Many of these changes reflected broader legal principles rather than an attempt to redesign college football.

Boosters and collectives

Wealthy donors became much more influential through NIL funding.

At some schools, recruiting has become closely tied to organized donor-backed collectives.

Coaches

Coaches often pursued higher salaries and changed jobs frequently.

Many also advocated for rules that benefited their programs.

That said, they generally operated within systems created by universities and conferences.

Players

Players used transfer opportunities and NIL rights that became legally available to them.

From their perspective, many simply sought compensation and freedom comparable to what coaches had long enjoyed.

They're probably the least convincing answer if the question is "who ruined college football," because they didn't create most of the structural incentives.

Fans

Fans have mixed responsibility.

They complained about commercialization while simultaneously watching more games, buying streaming packages, supporting realignment when it benefited their school, and donating to NIL efforts.

So who bears the most responsibility?

If "ruined" means:

Loss of regional conferences and rivalries: mostly university leaders, conference commissioners, and TV networks.

NIL and the transfer portal: primarily decades of NCAA policy followed by court decisions and state legislation—not the players themselves.

Commercialization: TV money, athletic departments, and university leadership.

Arms race in spending: everyone participated once the incentives were in place.

The biggest theme is that college football wasn't "ruined" by one villain. It evolved because nearly every stakeholder responded rationally to financial, legal, and competitive incentives. Television companies wanted valuable content, schools wanted revenue, conferences wanted leverage, coaches wanted better jobs, players wanted compensation, boosters wanted championships, and fans kept watching. The current landscape is the cumulative result of all those incentives interacting over several decades.

So everyone involved?

I can’t even be mad at this because even I used ChatGPT to make a pic of CJ as our starting left guard a few months ago 😭

On 7/20/2026 at 8:09 PM, Joe Zura said:

You missed out.