The NCAA gets crapped upon constantly, but I’m not sure they are at fault for a lot of what we’ve seen recently.
NIL- The courts are what allowed NIL to get to the point it is at. Obviously the NCAA could have come up with looser rules earlier, but it would have gotten to this point through the court system no matter what. The NCAA’s choice is to keep the current format, or start calling the players employees so they can get to collective bargaining and start to have some teeth again.
Eligibility - Again, the court system is what’s allowed players like Pavia to continue to play. How they ever looked at his case and just decided that JUCO years don’t count is beyond me. The NCAA has screwed up some here with inconsistent rulings - Drew Ott anyone. It used to be a solid 5 to play 4, but then medical and Olympic redshirts started to come in to play. Gary shirts followed. And here we are with 27 year olds playing college sports. A hard cap, while possibly ruining some good stories, is what’s needed.
All these things still ignore one of the main problems facing college sports…money vs opportunity. College sports SHOULD be an extension of the classroom, teaching leadership, accountability, teamwork, etc. Olympic and women’s sports will never make money, but in most cases they do a better job in teaching these things.