Well, I'm hearing agents are already representing some families and that doesn't surprise me. Truthfully, I think the only way to stop all this nonsense is to impose a rule that states a player that transfers, regardless of the situation, has to sit out one year, but I don't know if that will hold up in court. If you implement a one-year transfer rule, you won't see players jumping into the portal nearly as much and NIL will also take a hit because big money boosters aren't going to pay for a guy to sit on the sidelines for a year. The reality is the elite players are still going to get paid a lot of money because that has been going on for years. The NCAA put themselves in a pickle because once you allow all this craziness to happen, it's hard to reign everything back in and gain control. IMO, I think it's going to get a lot worse and we might as well go ahead and remove college from the title because college football has absolutely nothing to do with a student-athlete getting an education!
To some degree it’s been building for 20+ years and I’d the combination of the explosion of money in college sports, a similar explosion of money in outside money (boosters) a lack of institutional control by the NCAA and the immaturity of the very children being used and greed of whoever they listen to. The advent of the broad spectrum internet and 24/7/365 need for content has been the golden goose that is flooding college sports. Likewise the growth in the number and wealth of billionaires supporting programs has added to the flood significantly. At the highest levels sports programs are awash in cash. This has brought on a spending war for coaches, facilities and now athletes. Who could imagine paying $2MM/ year to the coach of a money losing women’s basketball team? We do without blinking. We paid off O, his assistants and hired Kelly without a murmur of concern. This is happening all over the country. Whether for better or worse it’s a fact. So who is the latest recipient of this flood? Young men, kids really; most of whom have no idea what’s happening and have zero preparation to handle it. When you were an 18 yo, poor or rich, can any of you honestly say we would be dazzled by the money? I can’t. To expect these kids to act like adults and look at long term interest is fantasy. I mean coaches who are adults are more frequently than not lured and dazzled by the cash. Why do we expect more of kids? As has been done historically the NCAA, conferences and school leaders have failed miserably and as a result created this disaster. As has been noted here, this has been coming for years and decades but the ones who should have been responsible stuck their collective heads in the sand until forced to accept the changes. Could it have been avoided? Yes though likely not easily. Both NIL and the no penalty transfer rule are poisonous to the game. However it’s possible that NIL with restrictions on transfer may have provided time to adapt. There’s a mess today and if there isn’t change and strong management the golden goose will be slaughtered.
They should at the least make a rule that states if a player gets paid NIL, then they forfeit their scholarship. People seem to have forgotten that a $100k full ride to an education is indeed payment for services rendered. If they're going to turn them into semi-pro players while in college, then they don't need that scholarship, or if they want to pursue it they can pay for it themselves and donate the scholarship to some kid that needs it.
No one has spoken about the USFL coming back this year, but that could impact college football even more than NIL. If the league allows players to automatically jump from HS to the USFL, which some sports allow, then NIL won't be as big of a problem, but the talent level will also dip. The current NFL rule states a player has to be three years removed from high school, but the USFL can implement its own rules, which could once again drastically change the landscape of college football. The reality is this entire mess is no one's fault, except the NCAA's for allowing NIL to take place with no guidelines in place.
That would have to be an agreement between the player and the business paying the NIL. Officially, the school doesn’t have anything to do with the deal.
Technically, NIL is supposed to be between the player and company, but you can bet schools are right in the middle ensuring their school has a good NIL package to offer to the players. Their name may not be in the agreement, but their fingerprints are all over the details!
