I've said it before and I'll say it again: if the NCAA member schools won't fix it's model, someone else will, and the NCAA member schools aren't going to like how they fix it.
As for California, the US needed California as it was (and, more specifically, the gold buried in the high Sierra) at the time of it's admission far more than it needed the US. A bigger question to ask is this: What if word of the gold discovery (found January 24, 1850) had gotten to Mexico City prior to the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (signed February 2, 1850)? Probably not much.