And given that the only choice is to remove the largest state from you organization. With that cali makes their own league and now the NCAA has a huge competition for the top talent. Why would you go to school anywhere else than Cali.
Sure, they can (well, that is, litigate against a state to neutralize the law), usually by claiming it violates federal law (including the Constitution). That's tough here, but I suppose you could throw a hail mary at either a contracts clause or a dormant commerce clause action.
If a college/university contracts to be included in a athletics association, there is nothing wrong with requiring the schools to comply with NCAA rules/regulations.
If a student athlete contracts with a college/university to play a sport for them, there is nothing wrong with the college/university requiring them to comply with both the college and NCAA rules/regulations.
Without the benefit of looking at all the various agreements and the actual CA Bill, it sounds like their approach to cure the issue may amount to an unconstitutional restriction on the athletes' Constitutional right to contract.
They can simply say "your student-athlete is ineligible to participate."
Can California create their own league?
Sure.
Will doing so decimate their schools' athletic budgets? Probably. There's not going to be much national demand for a state-only organization, and it's going to get particularly ugly when the feds discover schools colluding with rich boosters talent in order to attract them there because of Title IX.
Uh, this would be true of many states but not of states like CA/TX/FL.
There would absolutely be demand for a CA-only athletic organization.
There's a reason California did this and not, say, Alaska (no offense to Alaska of course).
One of the foundational reasons that the WWF / WWE became the dominant power in the wrestling market is that they were the first to ignore regional barriers.
Rinse, repeat.
[0] admittedly, minor confused conferences like Conference USA and Big 12 stretch the definition a little bit, but they're still essentially regional.
Er, we're talking about them right now. College sports are extremely regional but still have significant national appeal. Many, many people tune into SEC conference games who have no connection to the SEC.
If you think people wouldn't watch an SEC-only league (I'm using the SEC here because it's the most obvious example), then I think that betrays your knowledge of college sports.
A state-only organization the size of California can easily compete especially when any player in any sport with financial planning would move to California.
Why would anyone watch the NCAA in football, basketball or anything else when we'd know all the best player are in the California League.
Also, the point is that rich boosters colluding wouldn't be illegal. This wouldn't have anything to do Title IX. I do agree those rich donors will pull all the best talent to California though.