The Other Professional Football League

Today marks the start of the NCAA college football playoffs. NCAA football or, if we're honest about it, the other professional football league. 

It's true, you know, at least at the higher levels. With literally billions of dollars at, ahem, play, and athletes themselves getting NIL, Name, Image, and Likeness, money, we are far beyond amateurs playing for school bragging rights or poor kids getting an education through sports which they wouldn't otherwise get. It's all about the money. Again, at least at the highest levels anyway.

It's not about getting an education. Most of these players are in sports management or some such nonsense. It's not about the school or school pride, it's about the personal brand. You can now leave for a better deal. Hell, it's not even about selfless sportsmanship. When you treat the other guy like an enemy when all you're doing is playing a game, if you have to 'fire up' to participate, you've gone a step too far. Several, in fact, but that may be for another day.

The intellectually honest thing to do would be to disassociate the games from the schools. Cut them off and let them go their own way. It's not like the money isn't there. Yet intellectual honesty is something college sports, like politics, can't, or won't, see. 

Hey, enjoy it, if that's your entertainment. But say what it is. And it's professional football.