I agree. That's why I have long said that I think this all will be the end of CFB as we know it. No one cares about the minor leagues.
Thus far, I have been incorrect. The playoff has generated a lot of interest and the money has grown overall. I'm still not sold. Over time, I think fans will become jaded and realize how dumb it is to pay a 19yo 7-figures to play minor league sports and then have that kid leave your team less than a year later for another school paying more. In the end, I think the whole model breaks. IDK how it's gonna go, but I think it's gonna be very different.
My thoughts are that it could go one of two ways.
Option 1. There is a "Super League" of 20ish programs that keep up the madness. Many of them are SEC schools that aren't in NFL markets. Then there is a return to something like we knew in the 90s, where kids go to school to get an education, but are able to make $$ from NIL as it was intended (ie Local commercials, signing autographs at the Ford Dealership, etc).
Option 2: There is a D-League that the NFL pays for as a necessity to develop kids that can't/don't want to go to college. College looks like the 90s description above. The draft pulls kids from both sources.