Interesting info in this link . . .
No American sport can match college football’s tradition, rivalries, game-day experience or the value of each game during the regular season. The sport is positioned to become even bigger, but it’s also at risk of abandoning the elements that made it so great in the first place.
www.sportsbusinessjournal.com
Unfortunately, THINGS CHANGE. And as more time elapses, no no knows -- OR EVEN CARES -- if it was for the better or not.
The CFB world you're born into is the one you know and measure the game by. That and to a lesser extent perhaps, the worlds of your father and grandfather.
If you were born in the pre-BCS era, the game has already changed dramatically, even as it continues to do so. For those born after that point, change, though it's been material, hasn't covered nearly as much ground nor has it veered away at all from its MUCH MORE SLICKLY MONETIZED post-BCS paradigm.
I can remember listening to Noam Chomsky once -- no, I'm a CENTRIST, not a RADICAL LEFT PROGRESSIVE -- who kept going on about how there had been a THRIVING WORKING CLASS PRESS in the 1930's. Who expects to see THAT again, or maybe even a THRIVING PRESS OF ANY KIND?
Football, along with everything else that SURVIVES in this country, follows the ALMOST IMMUTABLE LAWS of capitalism.
And what's rule number one?
FOLLOW THE MONEY.