Quote Originally Posted by runtheoption View Post
This whole thread basically sums up why so many people are losing interest in college sports. NIL and especially the transfer portal has sucked the fun out of it for me.

I thought the Portly one was off his rocker when he has suggested multiple times over the last 10 years that too much emphasis is placed, and too much taxpayer money spent, on college sports. I am coming around to his viewpoint. He suggested that collegiate sports should be modeled after clubs -- see NDSU rugby, lacrosse, club baseball, hockey, etc. This is just a guess, but I think those clubs probably fund-raise 95-97% of their budget. That's how it was for us back in the mid to late 90's -- the whole club got around $500-$1000/year from student gov't, other than that we were on our own. We traveled all over the midwest for games 4-6 times per year with the other 4-6 games at home. The travel got expensive. We threw keggers at the "The Party Room" (who remembers that place?) to make money and were constantly asking for donations.

Want a full-ride scholarship and COA? Get good grades for an academic scholarship or convince people to create a specific scholarship/COA endowment for your sport or major. Want to pay for school and didn't get a scholarship? Join the Guard. Want to play sports in college? Better start fundraising and better have a flexible boss for your part-time job during the school year. Want to see a sport succeed at your alma mater? Give 'til hurts, and then give some more.

Should there not be any institutional funds or taxpayer dollars supporting college sports? Seemed like a crazy question to me 10 years ago. Now, not so much.
I'm with RTO. I don't see how this will be sustainable for smaller programs like NDSU. Something has got to give. I'm starting to see a scenario where the lower divisions of football are not allowed to give out anything above scholarships.