Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Speaking the the NFL, I'm kinda surprised they haven't jumped the NCAA and the "Big 5" conferences and just start their own D-League. Lets be real, most guys who go to play college football at big time programs aren't there to get educated. So why present the facade that they are? They are there to play football, and if they go to class they take communications. Way to waste a scholarship.
So the NFL should just have its own D-League. Players could get paid, they would be under the supervision of the NFL, they could be developped specifically with the pros in mind. Keep the 3 years out of high school thing or even modify it (i.e. players can be drafted right out of high school, just can't play in the NFL until 3 years after).
It would kneecap the NCAA and the Big 5, and the NFL would have the most popular and second most popular football leagues in the world, because an NFL D-League would get all the best athletes in college and the NCAA would return to being more about student athletes.
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I've thought about that but I'm not sure it would work. A lot of people aren't fans of college football because of the level of play, they're fans because of the relationship to the institutions and what they represent to them. The base of college football is built upon people with strong ties to the programs, largely through alumni. An NFL D-League has none of that, it's simply the NFL with younger players. We already have a pretty strong example of what that scenario looks like in the form of the NBA D-League, which is miles behind NCAA basketball in terms of popularity despite rosters that would dominate the vast majority of NCAA teams.