Billion-dollar ball

"Over the past decade college football has not only doubled in size, but its elite programs have become a $2.5-billion-a-year entertainment business ... . In most cases, those windfalls are not passed on to the universities themselves, but flow directly back into their athletic departments. College presidents have been unwilling or powerless to stop a system that has spawned a wildly profligate infrastructure of coaches, trainers, marketing gurus, and a growing cadre of bureaucrats whose sole purpose is to ensure that players remain academically eligible to play. ... What are the consequences…