It’s no secret the NCAA’s passing of NIL laws has created an epicenter of world-shattering changes over the last few years. While the big state schools reign over the landscape more than ever, in revenue sports, such as football and men’s basketball, various programs in mid-major leagues have somewhat kept up. The Boise State’s out of the Mountain West and James Madison’s from the Sun Belt, among others, have remained competitive at the revenue championship levels of Division 1 athletics. However, for schools that have long dominated Olympic sports, their pockets are not as deep, and this has created a ditch of downtrodden results in the pay-for-play era.
On the baseball diamond, historically, Cal State Fullerton is one of the most successful programs in the entire country. The Titans have dogpiled in Omaha as national champions four times in their history, tied for fifth-most all-time alongside the likes of high-major powerhouses Arizona and Miami. Fullerton and Arizona State have long harbored a rivalry, one of the most intense on the West Coast collegiate baseball scene. Despite playing in separate conferences, the class of the Big West and the five-time champion Sun Devils have met for midweek matches nearly annually since the turn of the century, with ASU holding the head-to-head by just three wins across 33 contests.
The 2025 iteration, played at Phoenix Municipal Stadium on April 1, wasn’t the clash of college baseball powerhouses it used to be. Instead, it showcased a shell of a once-great program left for dead in the tragic fall of college athletics.
At the time of the game, the Sun Devils were ranked in the NCBWA Top 25, near pole position in their conference. Before 2021, most Fullerton teams wouldn’t have been far behind them. A program just four campaigns removed from a 40-year stretch of 35 postseason appearances, the Titans bussed down I-10 on pace for their fourth losing season in five years. The product they put on the field against the high-major, well-talented Sun Devils in a run-rule-shortened 14-4 final was the perfect microcosm of what NIL has destroyed since its inception.
Wasting no time, Arizona State plated four runs in the first inning, and one of the nation’s most fearsome offenses wouldn’t let up the rest of the way. Up and down the ASU order, future MLB prospects sprayed 14 hits across four Fullerton pitchers, who gave up six free passes in as many innings. The Titans were no giant gods in the batter’s box to compensate, managing a measly four runs in a notorious hitter’s park, facing the bottom of the totem pole of Sun Devil pitching.
Fullerton’s emasculation on April Fools was just a look through the lens into a sub—500 team on April 15, more than halfway through the 2025 campaign. A program that’s seen 70 alumni suit up in the Major Leagues, including current all-stars Matt Chapman,
Michael Lorenzen, and former World Series champion Justin Turner, has zero prospects in Baseball America’s top 100 college players for 2025.
With the snap of the billionaire’s finger, one of the most storied programs in college baseball became an afterthought. An elite baseball tradition was swept into the dustbin with its enrollment of less than 50,000 and comparatively small alumni base paling compared to the metropolitan assets and money-making allies in Arizona State’s sphere of influence. For the post-natal years of NIL, even ASU struggled to keep up with the old southern money being dished out in the SEC among larger bonus pools.
College athletes, especially those in baseball, deserve to get compensation for the rigorous student-athlete life they have to traverse. Money talks to a kid coming out of high school, and the Titans’ selling point of rich history and conference dominance has taken the rear to a six-figure check from a high-major program. This current structure favors the rich, leaving the rest to figure it out in a lawless, Wild West state. The dust storms of those dirt-filled wooden towns have blown over Goodwin Field, leaving Fullerton’s four college world series banners as long-lost memories rather than symbols of motivation.
Suppose regulations aren’t implemented to level the playing field. In that case, many tradition-filled athletic programs will suffer the same fate as Titan baseball, akin to John Wayne taking a fatal bullet in the back at his final stand.
