Having played and covered college football, Kirk Herbstreit knows a thing or two about rapid changes, including conference expansion and NIL.
Herbstreit did not hold back in a recent interview with OutKick's Dan Dakich, courtesy of "Don't @ Me with Dan Dakich" when asked about changes across the sport.
"In our sport, in football, I feel like Greg Sankey, and Tony Petittie, those guys, the commissioners at the SEC in the Big Ten, they seem for me to kind of run this sport and the other commissioners I feel like are in alignment, trying to get in alignment with them," Herbstreit said. "I think they are the power brokers in this sport. I feel like every time with the threat of litigation, every time the NCAA goes like, excuse me, can we it's just like back in your corner, and they're just like, okay, you're right. We're back. We're going back over here to the corner. So I feel like the NCAA has lost any power whatsoever.”
So much so that Herbstreit argues the commissioners should take matters into their own hands, he said.
“I think they should go form their own world, create their own governing body," Herbstreit said. "Get one voice, one commissioner, instead of everybody having to get an agreement, or these guys don't always feel comfortable with each other. Get one voice.”
Herbstreit concluded that at the rate things are headed, the term student-athlete will also change.
"“Then you're going to eventually probably have revenue sharing," Herbstreit said. " I mean you're going to probably have all this money that's being thrown into this world. You're going to have to share that. So you partner with a players union or an entity of some kind, and then you enforce rules. You know, here are the rules. If you break them bang, if you if you fall in line, then you're going to be fine. And I think that's the only way we can go to avoid the litigation, the antitrust laws. I don't know how you get there, but I think that's where we're headed. Players are going to be employees.”
With all that said, the future of the NCAA remains to be seen.
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