That can't be replicated in professional sports because college is closer to home and is rooted in participation not just distant adoration. The students actually attend the school, spending their formative years in a place and time that will never be repeated in their lives and that alma mater institution becomes part of their identity in a way that professional sports can't quite do, because they can never have the same level of participation in that institution that leads to such attachment.

Also, the multi-generational history and nostalgia is why I love the marching bands. These schools have over a century of history. Most pro sports as presently constituted have a fraction of that. College sports are rooted in a time when marching bands were the only music and entertainment. There weren't jumbotrons and PA systems blaring catchy bass-heavy pump-up music to compete with.

So, the marching band, IMO, is what gives the sense of tradition and legacy. I can imagine that my great-grandmother at BYU in the 1920s listening to the same type of music in that same place, or my grandmother in the 40s as a cougarette with an actual live cougar on the field.

You can't get that from pro sports or other entertainment, and I think that's what makes the marching band, and college sports, awesome. Participation, identity, history, and a continuity of all the sights and sounds that preserve it and make it feel real.