to players to entice them to join certain NCAA teams to try win NCAA championships. So unless its local state amateur activities or for things where there is little interest, I am not sure there ever was this pure amateurism you refer to.
We live in a rich society. So where there is strong national interest in an entertainment avenue, there are going to be significant sums of money generated. Its immoral to let the old dude coaches/admins/bowl execs rake in millions while the players have their compensation monopolistically limited.