But I think from my perspective the sport started to get professionalized decades ago with $100 handshakes and boosters' handouts and freebies. My uncle played for Oklahoma in the '70s and this stuff was super common. Programs also have been making money off of the sale of merch selling Staley/Beck/Hill jerseys that are not player jerseys only in the sense that they only bear the number and not the name of the player.
The point is we are way down that road already, much to my dismay. I don't know the answer but saying we don't want to professionalize the sport when we have been doing it for 40 years seems a little disingenuous to me