But let’s say all the NFL teams decide to do a development league and every team as a minor league team with 50 player rosters, and they only take high school kids. So the top 1,600 HS football players don’t play college football. This would lead to a pretty diminished product in CFB, and really wouldn’t be as big as it is today.

So yes, fans are more invested in the universities more so than players, but the players do bring their own kind of value to the school that can’t be so easily discounted.

Also on a side note, while the athletes derive a good portion of their value from the university, why do we need to put a cap on how much they can profit and get from their own brand/value?