CLEMSON — If you have not noticed, greed is ruining college athletics, and we are just allowing it to happen.

Once again, money controls multiple sports. While conferences, administrators, coaches, agents and players get their greedy little fingers dirty and argue over what is right and what is wrong and who should get what and why, fans, alumni and the non-revenue athletes are the ones who suffer.

The powers that be—I am talking mostly to you SEC and Big Ten—are willing to leave everything to crash and burn in the world of college athletics just so they can line their pockets with more of the green stuff.

This is not the first time we have seen power and greed take over sport. Professional sports have had this issue for ever.

The NFL almost canceled its seasons in 1974 and 1982 due to players’ strikes over the collective bargaining agreements, while the 1987 season used “scabs” for a while to keep the season alive.

What Major League Baseball did was even worse. Greed got so bad between the owners and the players in 1994, the players’ strike came near the end of the season, forcing the cancellation of the 1994 World Series. The labor disputes continued until the start of the 1995 season.

The NHL has had similar issues as baseball, while the NBA has had its fair share of labor disputes too.

I do not know if football or baseball seasons will be cancelled in college sports, but we do know schools are attempting to cancel certain programs to save money.

Arkansas discontinued its men’s and women’s tennis programs in hopes to save a little money. But they were forced by the alumni and boosters to reinstate both programs.

However, the fact that Arkansas was trying to eliminate two Olympic sports—non-revenue sports—tells us where the state of college athletics is going.

Arkansas is an SEC team, where its members receive more money and have more advantages than the majority of other conferences, that is trying to find a way to save money.

Rutgers and Penn State—two Big Ten programs—have recently come out with numbers that show how much money they are spending and how much dept they are in. ACC members Florida State and Virginia Tech have produced similar numbers.

Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti recently said the cost of player compensation is getting “scary” and if something is not done in the next 12 to 24 months, it could threaten to destroy college football as it currently exists.

Recently, Clemson athletic director Graham Neff said the athletic department’s operating budget for 2026-’27 will exceed $200 million, nearly three times what the operating budget was two years ago. Clemson’s expenses are also approaching a record high of nearly $200 million.

As Cignetti referred to, it will be impossible for most schools to continue at this rate. Something needs to be done.

The Protect the College Sports Act is that something. U.S. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ranking Member Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) introduced the bipartisan legislation to restore stability to college sports. The two held a hearing at the U.S. Senate on Wednesday in hopes of getting the bill moved on to the next phase.

Unfortunately, everyone left the hearing as mad or as divided as they were when the bill was introduced last week. The SEC and Big Ten are fighting it, as are some democrats and republicans who are using it for political gain elsewhere.

At the moment, the legislation is not going anywhere and that is not good for college athletics because the only direction college athletics is going – is down and that is going to impact, not only those student athletes who compete in the non-revenue sports, but also the fans.

In the end, it is always the ones who have nothing to gain that lose the most.