You are 100% correct on the NCAA's complicity in this mess we find ourselves in today. They kept their head in the sand and have only been reactive. The sooner that entity goes away, the better.

Colleges/universities are just as responsible. (After all, they control the NCAA.) For some reason, college presidents refuse to consider employment contracts and collective bargaining. I believe it's because they won't let go of the nostalgia of amateur athletics and don't want to have to admit that the tail is wagging the dog. If not for that, much of this mess can be fixed with contracts.

Seems likely that in 5 years it will be groups of conferences (e.g. P4) making their own rules for most sports, and/or some sports may establish their own sport-specific leagues.

What I'm not certain about is if all of this will be uniformly bad for smaller programs. There has been interesting chatter in the last week about how some of the non-football schools experience a significant advantage over P4 schools if they opt into the House settlement revenue sharing and don't have to spread out where they spend the money.

Who the hell knows where this goes... NCAA goes back to the hill on April 9 to beg for an anti-trust exemption. Pitiful.