re: Just bring on a NFL minor league at this point.

The larger colleges need to enact that breakaway league now. Get the top 30-40 programs together, call it a University sponsored semi-pro league. Establish a doable fixed team budget and get a salary cap is set for every school. This way you can get a collectively bargained agreement for the players as well and contracts in place for compensation.

Every school can scout and recruit, but has to manage their budget. The profits get pooled and pushed back to the university as profit for their use in their general funds or to fund actual amateur sports.

At that point the players don't even need to be students either, they can if they want, but we can get rid of that charade as well if they aren't there for an education.

It's a lot cleaner. Players can be paid and the University still has it's team although now it would just be a sponsored profit center instead of tied directly to the school.