Flock Talk: Masters of War

 

Can We Trust NCAA-Driven Solutions to Fix Their Own Mess?

“You fasten the triggers for the others to fire, then you sit back and watch when the death count gets higher.”
— Bob Dylan, Masters of War

---

I have talked frequently in Flock Talk about the need for a real solution to the runaway spending and chaotic landscape unleashed by years of the NCAA trying to subvert the new reality of the modern student-athlete. For far too long, the NCAA clung to an outdated amateurism model — one built on control, exploitation, and maximizing institutional profit under the guise of "student-athlete welfare." Their greed and hubris paved the road to today’s crisis, and now, after decades of resistance, those same insiders have suddenly decided they can "fix" the system they broke.

The administrators now promising salvation feel a lot like the "masters of war" Dylan called out in his iconic song — powerful figures who build their fortresses and watch from comfortable boardrooms while others do the bleeding and breaking.

---

The latest "solution": Collective bargaining

Tennessee athletic director Danny White is one of the latest to step forward with a proposed "solution": collective bargaining with college athletes. White, who has been privately pitching this idea for years, has finally gone public, advocating for a model where players become "employee-athletes" — though, conveniently, they wouldn’t be employees of their universities. Instead, a new national employment organization would handle the messy details.

As Ross Dellenger of Yahoo Sports reports, White believes, “Collective bargaining and employment status shouldn’t be seen as negative terms.” And he’s not alone — a growing number of administrators are beginning to echo his sentiment. But the sudden embrace of an idea they once fiercely opposed should make everyone pause.

On its face, collective bargaining sounds like a step toward stability, fairness, and transparency. It promises enforceable contracts, revenue sharing, and legal clarity. But in reality, this proposal is mired in deep legal and practical challenges that expose the fundamental dishonesty of those championing it from inside the NCAA system.

---

The Legal Trap

Collective bargaining under U.S. law is reserved for employees. Currently, college athletes are classified as students, not workers. That classification is the NCAA’s creation — a fortress they’ve defended in courtrooms and in Congress for decades. Now, when faced with mounting legal challenges and the impending House settlement era, they conveniently float the idea of bargaining — without fundamentally changing that classification. It’s like a casino offering a "fair game" after decades of rigging the deck.

For athletes to collectively bargain, they must first unionize and be recognized as employees, a legal and logistical mountain to climb. These athletes are young, with rapid roster turnover, no centralized leadership, and intense pressures from coaches and institutions. They lack the long-term stability and bargaining power of professional leagues like the NFL or NBA, where players’ unions have existed for decades.

Even if players somehow achieve this, the model White proposes would still not treat them as true employees of the schools. Instead, they’d become employees of a national body designed to shield universities from direct liability and taxes. This half-step solution reeks of strategic self-preservation rather than meaningful reform — or as Dylan might say, "You hide in your mansion while the young people's blood flows out of their bodies."

---

The Practical Minefield

Beyond legal status, there’s the sheer practical complexity. College sports aren’t a single-sport league with 1,500 players like the NFL; they’re a sprawling ecosystem with over 30 sports and tens of thousands of athletes. Football and men’s basketball generate revenue; other sports survive only because of those profits.

As Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne and ACC commissioner Jim Phillips warn, redistributing those profits to football and basketball players as salaries would force cuts elsewhere. Some schools might drop from 28 sports to as few as six. This would devastate Olympic sports, women’s programs, and broader participation opportunities — all while colliding with Title IX requirements.

Contracts, too, are no simple fix. We’ve already seen players break multimillion-dollar NIL agreements — like Rob Wright III’s departure from Baylor to BYU and Xavier Lucas leaving Wisconsin for Miami — despite supposed "binding" contracts. The idea that collective bargaining alone will suddenly enforce stability is naive. Enforcement mechanisms, penalties, and legal oversight at a level comparable to pro leagues would be necessary, yet schools currently have no infrastructure or appetite to manage that reality.

---

The NCAA’s Pattern: Control and Delay

This is where we should all pause. The NCAA has shown us its playbook repeatedly: resist change, lose in court, scramble to patch over the damage, and then present a new "solution" designed to preserve control. The post-House settlement environment is no different. While the settlement introduces athlete revenue sharing, it’s a temporary bandage, not a cure. And now, these administrators want to negotiate limits on athlete freedom — including transfer restrictions and salary caps — all while maintaining the fiction that athletes aren’t really employees.

They call it "collective bargaining," but they don’t want real bargaining. They want a mechanism to rein in costs and protect themselves from further lawsuits, all without relinquishing the centralized power they’ve clung to for decades. It’s a strategy designed to protect the system, not transform it.

It reminds me again of Dylan’s words: "Like Judas of old, you lie and deceive."

---

The Congressional Mirage

Some cling to the hope of congressional intervention, but that too is a mirage. Despite countless hearings, more than a dozen bills, and millions spent on lobbying, Congress hasn’t passed a single meaningful piece of NCAA legislation. With bigger national and global crises consuming Washington, expecting bipartisan cooperation on this issue is like expecting a touchdown pass in a blizzard — theoretically possible, but realistically absurd.

As Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione put it, “We need some path on getting the sides together to create a competitive environment where both share in the upside.” That’s a noble sentiment, but it won’t happen as long as the NCAA’s main objective is self-preservation.

---

The Real Question: Who Is This For?

When administrators like Danny White argue for collective bargaining, we must ask: Who is this really for? Is it for the athletes who risk their bodies and futures to generate billions? Or is it for the administrators desperate to hold on to an empire crumbling under its own contradictions?

The House settlement and the revenue-sharing era are the beginning of an inevitable evolution. Athletes will continue to demand a fair share, and courts will continue to expose the NCAA’s anticompetitive structures. True solutions require fundamentally restructuring the relationship between athletes and universities — acknowledging them as workers, granting them full rights, and building a system that supports both revenue and non-revenue sports in a sustainable way.

But that won’t come from the same voices that spent decades denying these realities. As Flock Talk readers know, I’ve long advocated for solutions that center the athlete, not the balance sheets of bloated athletic departments or the TV deals of conference commissioners.

---

Final thoughts

In the end, I don’t know if we can trust any model offered by those who created this mess in the first place. Real reform can’t come from the top down; it has to come from empowering athletes, shifting power, and accepting hard truths.

Anything less?

Just another verse in a long, sad song written by "masters of war" who sit in luxury suites while the players do the fighting on the fields.