Collegiate Football Considered Semi-Pro?

College football has grown extremely popular amongst the United States with millions of views per game. As a result of its popularity, the sport is also responsible for generating over $800 million in revenue to the Southeastern Conference (SEC) in 2024. This is a steep increase compared to 2001when the sport earned around $78 million, this means that the revenue generated by collegiate football has increased by more than 925% in this twentythree year span. Though college football is not a professional league, it does mirror similar business related deals seen in the National Football League. This includes subjects like NIL and the transfer portal. Nowadays, student athletes can use their name, image, and likeness to generate personal income. This contract has gotten so popular that many bigtime student athletes, primarily football players, earn more in NIL than many NFL rookie contracts. Business decisions like these have shifted the history of the amateur oriented sport to now focus on income and is highly influenced by donors to the universities that want to achieve otherwise unrealistic results. 

Along with the newly introduced NIL contracts, there is also the transfer portal that has caused a huge change in the consistency of rosters in college football. Much like that of the NFL, the transfer portal is a tool that allows teams to trade players, often resulting in higher NIL contracts for the athlete if they attend an alternate university. This is extremely similar to trading players within the teams in the NFL and also has a deadline to transfer. The constant change in collegiate football with the introduction of NIL and the transfer portal has indeed resulted in impressive athletes and winning-seasons. However, when is the line meant to be drawn on the income an athlete can receive or how many times an athlete can transfer universities simply for a higher payout through NIL? The similarities do not stop there. In fact, the ages of the athletes in both college and professional football are getting more and more similar with even shocking statistics. The average age of an NFL rookie is between 21-23 years old, while the average college football player in his last year of eligibility since the COVID-19 outbreak is 22-23 years old. This means that some college football players are in fact older than a great deal of rookie players in the NFL. However, it is important to note that there are distinct differences in the level of football within rules and gameplay. This includes needing to have two feet in bounds when receiving a ball in college football while the NFL requires both feet to be in bounds for the pass to be complete. Another difference includes the amount of regular season games with NFL having 17 while collegiate football has 12. Though there are these differences between the two levels of football, how long will it take for the two to merge rules and gameplay to be virtually the same? The line between collegiate and professional football is continuing to blur, which raises the question: Can collegiate football be considered semi-pro?