Let's make this commentary much more accurate.  It is not college athletics they are talking about - it is all male college football.  An expensive and violent sport that leaves a significant number of players with life long brain damage.  The drive to have better and better teams causes universities to spend to excess, build wildly expensive stadiums, admit students to universities who are not qualified and piggyback the costs on to the cost of a college degree and student debt - including other student athletes.  Only a hand full of the 200+ Div 1 FBS teams make a profit and the rest pour millions in generated from education.  Football takes away from other sports - especially women's sports but men's as well.  At CSU, for example, there are only 4 men's scholarship sports.  BTW - scholarships are an expense for universities and football scholarships are worth considerably more than other athletic scholarships and they get more perks, such as nutritionists and academic support.