Pro Football, pro Baseball, pro Basketball, pro Hockey, pro Futbol, pro Lacrosse, pro Volleyball, pro Curling ... OK, OK, I'll watch and follow, fervently, some of them.
I'll watch a non-Vikings game when it means something to me (regional biases for the most part) or I'm snowed in and there's little else to do. I will scramble like hell to watch an ND game. I'll even go to a smarmy, over priced sports bar.
Be that as it may, that being said: qué sera, sera.
Consider that, in the early, early days college football was professional football. Colleges and Universities "hired" athletic thugs to man their teams and ignore their classrooms for the "glory." All while getting a degree.
This is a recurring theme that exists to this day, but at least there are some nominal curbs to the practice. If there is a profit to be turned, in whatever form, this will continue until the Rapture.
A year or three without the NFL may well benefit my adopted home town. The Golden Gophers might actually fill their new stadium. We residents of Minneapolis, Hennepin County, Minnesota might not have our fingers and legs broken to coerce us into paying taxes and fees to build (in large) a new stadium for an owner that stands to make millions upon his eventual sale of the team . All while paying players millions, as temporary and part-time residents, who contribute little to the livelihood of the general populace and the world at-large.
My convoluted point? Were there no NFL or any other professional football league, the pressure to pay college players would escalate and be even more subterranean than it is currently.
Another (unintended) consequence of the possible demise of the NFL, CFL and EFL is that there would be a paucity of potential college football players willing to go through the exquisite pain and benefit of college while on the road to heady NFL riches.
The college game, should it remain truly amateur, would see its talent pool dry up.
I can see a benefit to college football without a professional level on the short term with regard to interest and/or audience, but not to the allure and true tradition of the game.
Fire away if you've bothered to read through these Rapture/Rupture drinking inspired ruminations.
[Damn, I'm still here. I don't even have to worry about "setting my house in order" in the next five days.]