That's not really what the NIL is intended.
This money isn't really coming from schools. If you are a fan of capitalism, why shouldn't someone be able to use their name and likeness to make money?!?
Besides - this probably opens up the door for a new NCAA football game which we haven't seen since 2004 :)
^^^^^ This ^^^^
When a person thinks they or something/someone they like/love benefits from the status quo, change to that status quo can be hard to accept.
NIL, the US Supreme Court ruling, and the transfer portal are all separate and unrelated, yet represent change to the status quo. Why should a college athlete not be allowed a paid internship or a free laptop when other non-student athletes are allowed those benefits? After the Court's ruling, the NCAA, conferences, and schools have to treat the student-athlete equal to all other students.
Student-athletes have always been allowed to transfer, but they couldn't play right away unless they had already graduated (see Joe Burrow, Jalen Hurts). Who did that NCAA rule benefit? Not the student-athletes. Since January, the student-athlete now has a one-time opportunity to transfer without sitting out a year whether a grad transfer or not. The transfer portal is simply a database that facilitates transfer and identifies who is going to transfer so other schools can legally (under NCAA rules) contact the athlete. That's all it is. The better programs will take advantage of it, and we've already seen that occurring. Plus, a new head coach who will most likely have been hired after the December and February signing days, has a better chance to fill out his roster with some transfers, and we've seen a lot of that. And, if a coach can leave for more money or a better opportunity or a coach can get fired or a program can commit recruiting violations, why must the student-athletes be stuck in place, while the coaches and administrators can move on to a better situation? Let's punish the players for the sins of the staff and/or athletic department?
NIL is going to be messy at first, but I don't think it's going to lead to the enrichment of student-athletes that many fear or to the demise of college sports. As DeerCamp points out, the state NIL laws prohibit boosters and schools from paying the players. The state laws simply prohibit the NCAA, conferences, and schools from prohibiting players from making money off their NIL. It's the American way to earn a profit off your NIL. Why should these adults be prohibited from doing so? But we aren't going to see national brands like Coca Cola and Ford using 18 and 19 year olds to promote their very, very valuable brand. It will be a lot of local businesses, Instagram posts, Tweets, start up businesses. The players will now be able to profit off their social media posts, like any other social media influencer. But these players are also going to have to pay income tax on their earnings (and playing for and attending school at Florida, Tennessee, or Texas doesn't make one a resident of those states). The players are also going to be subject to various contractual provisions, and they better read the fine print. They will have responsibilities to uphold, perhaps morality clauses, and we all know how some of these 18, 19, 20 year olds behave.
I think college athletics is the strongest that it's ever been. I checked with my teenage son, and he said NCAA 2014 was the last EA Sports NCAA football game. It will be back in 2023.
