This has been a good thread. I have one more thing to add, then am going to try to withdraw from the debate:
I just do not understand the arguments that “college athletes should value their educations” and therefore we need to keep the current system. In the current system, highly rated football and basketball players are rarely real college students. And again I remind everyone, these are the athletes who will be affected by the CA law. The argument seems to say we ought have something the current system doesn’t provide, and therefore should keep the current system.
Similarly, I don’t know how you can defend the current system by saying changes will lead to corruption or to making sports all about money. The current system is not exactly a paragon on either of those measures. Again, we are not talking about volleyball or water polo here.
Finally, when you say athletes can go play somewhere else if they don’t like NCAA rules, you are ignoring the fact that every major college athletic program in the US has formed a cartel for the express purpose of preventing athletes from playing elsewhere under different rules. When someone complains about an illegally maintained near-monopoly, it is no answer to say “if you don’t like the monopoly, then deal with someone else.”