I think this might help speed up a more uniform set of rules across all of college sports. You can't have programs out there doing whatever they want. What I don't understand is how the courts are involved. Tennessee, Virginia and Florida are all members of the NCAA, and in being such, agreed to follow the rules, set by NCAA member institutions. I don't know why the NCAA can't simply say, if you don't want to suffer the punishment when the rules are broken, then we no longer want you as part of the NCAA.
You make an excellent point.
However, I think the reason Tennessee and Virginia brought this to court is that everyone is cheating and they feel they were singled out for punishment.
Any sanctions would unfairly put them at a competitive disadvantage as the landscape continuously changes.
And the reason that you can't have a set of uniform rules, despite the fact that, as you point out, the schools are willing members of the NCAA, is that the rules are made without consent of the student-athletes and they would, as the courts point out, restrict their rights to earn money.
Any such restriction without their consent, is against federal law.
This is why
this is all headed to collective bargaining and a semi-pro model.
NIL is just a temporary appeasement to the student-athletes while the greedy school administrators keep the big revenue earnings to themselves.
And unfortunately, greed is what is driving everything, where everyone is trying to get as much as they can without any care for the integrity and competitiveness of the sports involved.
I've heard Pat Dooley say many times that college football is such a great product that it is hard for anyone to mess it up, and yet they keep trying, or something to that effect.
People just have to come to their senses, otherwise the courts will decide things.
