Did We Give Athletes Too Much Power?

I’ve always been for the players. ALWAYS. I've lived that life. I got screwed over more times than I can count. So when that shift started, and athletes finally started taking control of their careers, I was waving pom poms from the front row.

And now I’m starting to wonder if we have arrived at that Saved by the Bell episode where Zack Morris switches places with Mr. Belding. While giving the players full control felt right at the time, maybe we didn’t think through what it actually means to run the school. Now the hallways are chaotic, and everyone’s acting surprised.

In the NBA, we watched the rise of supermax contracts and trade demands. Stars linking up. Superteams formed overnight. Fans stopped rooting for teams and started rooting for timelines. The product got weird. The drama off the court became more important than the game on it.

And now…unfortunately, it’s trickled down to college basketball.

This year’s NCAA Tournament feels, well…off. The magic is fading. The Cinderella runs, the loyalty, the ride-or-die squads who stuck it out together, that used to be the dream. Kids wanted to be the underdog, to knock off Goliath. Now? They just wait to get bounced and then join him.

It’s all portal, all NIL, all about chasing that bag. I get it. I honestly do. But we’ve lost something in the process. We’ve lost the fight. We’ve lost our loyalty. We’ve lost the love for the grind.

When everyone’s building their own brand, who’s building the team?

I’m all for athletes getting paid and taking control of their careers. But we’re watching entitlement rise while competition fades. Loyalty’s dying. The product is suffering. And fans are starting to check out.

This isn’t a call to go backwards. It’s a call to find balance. Because power without purpose doesn’t build legacies. It just builds highlight reels that no one remembers.

College football kicked it off. College basketball is finishing it. And it all feels…off.

Fall brings college football hype. Spring brings March Madness. These two sports have always been about school pride and grit. Survive and Advance. Fan bases that lived and died with every play. But this year, something feels different.

Athletes aren’t staying long enough to build legacies. Teams are constantly reloading instead of rebuilding. The power dynamic has shifted so far that we’ve forgotten what made these games feel so special in the first place.

What’s happening in the NBA shows us where it started.

Stars ask out whenever they want. Superteams form overnight. Contracts are so massive the average fan can’t even connect to what they’re watching. Teams spend a season building chemistry, only to watch it explode in the offseason.

Fans used to buy jerseys and feel pride. Now they hesitate, because their favorite player might be gone before the All-Star break. The loyalty that created the sport’s deepest rivalries is gone. And so is the emotional investment.

The game is starting to suffer. Ratings are down. Passion is fading. You cannot build loyalty when nobody stays long enough to create it.

Now it’s showing up in college hoops.

March Madness was about the underdogs and the Cinderellas. We tuned in because we loved the idea that a small school with four-year players and nothing to lose could go toe-to-toe with the giants.

Now those guys don’t stay. They get bounced and jump into the transfer portal. They join the team that just beat them. It’s free agency without a filter. NIL money leads the way. Loyalty is gone. The dream is different now.

What happened to staying the course? What happened to building something that mattered?

We are watching players chase the next offer and the next bag. And in doing that, we are losing what made this whole thing matter in the first place.

We are not going backwards…but we need to fix what’s broken.

Players should ABSOLUTELY get paid. They should have choices. They should have advocacy. That part is not up for debate.

But when movement becomes more important than competition…when athletes never learn how to lose and bounce back…when the second things get hard they just move on…that’s when the game starts to lose meaning.

We are losing the competition. We are losing the stories. We are losing the identity of teams. The connection with fans. The reason people watch in the first place.

This new system is not perfect. And we have to stop pretending it is.

And if we keep heading down this path, we’re going to hit a wall. Because here’s the truth no one wants to say out loud…basketball is a business. If fans stop watching, NO ONE GETS PAID.

The WNBA is feeling this right now. Players want bigger salaries, and they deserve them. But the league still operates in the red. The money has to come from somewhere. And if the product suffers, then the business collapses. For everyone.

We can fight for player empowerment and still respect what keeps the lights on. Because once the fans are gone, once the passion is gone, once the stories stop mattering, the paychecks stop coming too.