College athletics has become a booming business for athletes in the name, image, and likeness (NIL) era, and former NFL great JJ Watt wants to see the NCAA change its tune.
In a message posted to X on Monday, the former Texan and current CBS NFL analyst said that the NCAA should end its “student first, athlete second charade.”
“At some point, the NCAA needs to drop the ‘student first, athlete second’ charade,” the former Wisconsin Badgers star wrote. “Billions of dollars, NIL, transfer portal (free agency), traveling cross-country for midweek games…
“Education is not the main focus. Admit it and call it what it is. A business. Run it as such.”
After an X user responded to Watt, saying that his post only referenced those upper-tier collegiate athletes making money from NIL, Watt readily agreed.
“That’s exactly my point,” Watt added. “We’ve got kids who aren’t ‘making money’ and will never go pro, yet they are traveling across the country midweek for ‘conference games,’ transferring schools, sacrificing studies for sport, etc. None of this is about what’s doing best for the student.”
Watt is not alone in acknowledging the current plight of college football.
Similar sentiments were echoed in February of 2024 by former Alabama head coach Nick Saban, who said the term “student-athlete,” as we have known it in the past, does not exist anymore.
“What we have now is not college football — not college football as we know it. You hear somebody use the word ‘student-athlete.’ That doesn’t exist,” Saban told ESPN.
“Just like an NFL player has a contract or a coach has a contract, something in place, so you don’t have all this raiding of rosters and mass movement,” he explained. “I wonder what fans are going to say when they don’t even know the team from year to year because there’s no development of teams, just bringing in new players every year.”
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