What happened in 1982 and 1987?
If you're referring to specific situations with programs, that's different. A single program that gets hits with huge defections is going to suffer because they will suck relative to their competition.
I'm referring to NFL labor stoppages. In 1982 it led to games being cancelled, and the NFL scrambling to come up with exhibitions with replacement players and networks to broadcast CFL games, both of which were financial disasters if I remember right. In 1987 they went even further and played with replacement players, mostly cast-offs from the recently folded USFL or recently retired players, and the play was so bad that it tanked both live and television audiences. Quality of play matters.
Oh, and the NFL only lost about 1,200 players in those labor disputes, less than that in '87 when a lot of players crossed the line early. You're talking about losing 6,000+ players in the Power Conferences alone. 18,000 if you extend that out to "All of D1" as you want to claim [I assume you meant all of FBS rather than including FCS?]. That would absolutely impact people's willingness to watch.
How much do you think these "4 star" and "5 star" players could make today without their university affiliation? They could all get together and form a league by themselves and nobody would give two [ Finebaum ]s to watch them play if they didn't have the university jersey on and weren't playing NCAA sanctioned college football.
Even if this were true, this doesn't really change the overall point which is that without
any players the NCAA is left with no product to provide those networks paying them billions. It doesn't really matter if it's the best 6,500 or the next 6,500, the players on the field are still what people are watching and are a significant part of what draws the money, whatever that amount is with worse players.
