I could argue that Unions distort the free market. My Dad was in a union, made really good money doing a blue collar job that any chimp with minimal training could do. It's like the ppl 20 years ago that made 60k on a car manufacturers assembly line.. ridiculously over priced for that labor back then.
You could argue that we don't live in a free open market, and I would agree with you, but on principle, Unions distort labor prices, just as illegal immigration distorts labor prices to the downside.
Do you think politicians letting in all these illegals are for altruistic purposes? Heck no, businesses are paying politicians on both sides big money to get this illegal 'slave' labor. So your own govt is working against the best interests of it's people. This is called corruption, and the people in the middle are going to get squeezed and abused again. They always do.
As to benefits, the rest of the world has more vacation days and works less hours per week than the US does. But I chalk that up to culture more than anything else. There is no doubt the US is a big meat grinder of human labor, but so many people don't see it because it's been embedded in the history and culture.
In regards to college football, I think the long term prospects are going to be in decline. There very well could be a separation between athletics and universities. The NFL needs some kind of feeder league, so something will exist to that end, but who knows what it will look like.
I also think soccer is going to become the new football in this country, as the country continues to absorb new foreign cultures, (not the other way around). All these new foreign cultures will collectively marginalize our own. But isn't that already happening?
I would love to see a true open free market, and let those solutions to problems naturally resolve themselves, but in order to have this, you need really small government. Currently, I see that trending the other way.