the way of determining a champion has done very little harm when compared to the affect of the NIL system and the transfer portal
When compensating the players started that gave the haves a huge boost
Don't like NIL? Fine. Drop the salary of all the coaches and AD's and everybody else working for the AD to a more reasonable level. Say, mmmm...$300K per year for the head coach, and maybe a bit less or more for the AD since they are in fact in charge of the whole dept not just one aspect.
For example, what is the pay for a VP at a public company who is in charge of a dept that does maybe billions of dollars worth of business? Real money including stock options.
Figure a college coach is in charge of a "department" that has about 120 employees in it including players, coaches, assistants, media, etc. Maybe 150ish, but definitely under 200 people. And they have to deal with "investors", which in this case would be boosters. What would a dept head (superintendent, VP, whatever you want to call them) make?
The top athletic programs revenue about $200 MM per year. Look at a business with that kind of revenue and expenses, and see what they pay their top execs. I'm guessing the top man would maybe get $1-2 MM (if not the founder) and the VP's would get $300-500K each.