Remember, the NCAA is a voluntary organization. The schools have always had the power to change that. And, the schools have always had the power to change the NCAA. That being said, I don't ever see the schools leaving the NCAA, but I do see them differentiating football from everything else. Maybe football and basketball, but more football.
I don't pretend to know all the ins and outs behind the legal situation around unionization and collective bargaining, but my understanding is that the NCAA can no longer restrict the free trade between players and the schools. The players have to voluntarily restrict themselves via unionization/CB. So what? Every other league does it, the NFL does it very successfully.
I'm curious to see your reasoning behind never expecting CB or unionization. My guess is that when the viewership/interest starts to decline that will be the deciding factor.
Yes, of course the NCAA derives its power from its member schools. That point is actually irrelevant because any move made by ALL the schools would be viewed as no different than a move made by the NCAA. And any restrictions attempted to be placed on free agency, wouldn't hold up in court, without unionization and collective bargaining. The NCAA is viewed as a monopoly and so its powers over the workplace market are being limited by the courts.
The conferences are not viewed as monopolies, because a player isn't forced to go to one particular conference in order to "find work." If the conferences ever attempted to collude that would become another legal issue, but in reality if, say, the SEC and the B1G decided they wanted to restrict free agency and made rules to do so, it would be advantageous for the B12 and the ACC to NOT make those same rules, and thus become a more attractive marketplace for players. Obviously the SEC and the B1G know this and aren't voluntarily going to make rules that punish themselves.
The reason I don't believe unionizing and CBA are going to happen any time soon, is because there's just too many people with different views and ideologies to make it happen. The NBA and NFL and every other professional league are terrible comparisons, because they only have, what, around 30 teams each? And they're each run by a single governing body.
NCAA FBS football has something like 130 schools, and then there's another 130 FCS, and then there's almost 400 D1 basketball programs, with around 100,000 athletes total, and then there's all of the OTHER non-revenue sports who are going to want to be included, and if you exclude them, then you're running the risk of more legal trouble and getting blasted in court.
So, no, I don't think it's realistic for all of those different schools, conferences, athletes, and sports, to all come to a reasonable conclusion on unionization and collective bargaining, any time in the near future, and probably, ever.
And the idea of "just break off football and/or basketball" leads to murky legal waters, but even if you did it, then I still don't think you can get those 400 schools across 20 different conferences and the 100,000 athletes in D1 alone, to come to agreement.
