You have to wonder how long it can go on. And you have to wonder if ESPN is going to, for all practical purposes, own college football.

Phillip Marshall, Senior Editor, AuburnUndercover.com

The SEC already has a 20-year deal with ESPN worth more than $2 billion. That adds up to about $5 million a year for each SEC member. And now the network has reached an agreement with the University of Texas worth $300 million over 20 years. That adds up to $15 million per year for one school.

It seems to me the other Big 12 schools have to now be wondering why they didn’t let the league blow apart last year. When one school can do get a deal like that, how can there be any kind of equality within the league?

When you step back and look at the big picture in college athletics, particularly college football, you can see the cracks in the foundation.

Most college athletics programs lose money, but those at the top are awash in money, much of it coming from ESPN. ESPN throws around millions and even billions of dollars. The players on whose backs the whole thing is built get scholarships and rules that make their lives even more difficult than regular students. Their private lives have come to be viewed as fair game for the media as if they were professionals, yet they are expected to act like amateurs playing for little but the love of the game.

Over the next two weeks, schools will spend untold amounts of money recruiting, trying to lure the best players to their campuses. Players will be talked about, written about and even featured on national TV.

And then they’ll be expected to be just like the kid down the street who weighs 140 pounds and would rather do chemistry experiments than watch football.

I’m not and have never been one who says the schools that can attract huge crowds ought to be penalized because others can’t. If you can’t afford to play at the highest level, don’t do it. I have always said it’s not feasible to pay players, because you’d have to pay every scholarship athlete in every sport.

But there still needs to be some balance brought to the system. It’s all about money on one end and money is a dirty word on the other end.

College football’s popularity is growing at a rapid pace. And as it grows, it looks and feels more and more like the NFL on the outside, but feels often oppressive on the inside. And that’s not good for anybody.

