ARLINGTON, Texas — The three-letter monster that the NCAA and its fleet of lawyers predicted would be the demise of college athletics has changed amateur sports, not ended it.
NIL (name imagine likeness) celebrated its one-year anniversary this month, and you will note that, ultimately, not much has changed when it comes to watching college football, basketball or any other collegiate sport.
From Kansas and North Carolina in men’s basketball to Georgia and Alabama in football, the names at the top remain the same names at the top.
The NCAA transfer portal, which “opened” in October of 2018, is still doing a brisk business.
Head coaches are paid like they just joined the LIV Golf tour.
The major difference now in an NIL world is a bunch of kids are paid some of that money over the table rather than under. Direct compensation to student athletes is now an open part of the recruiting process.
The NCAA and NIL
The rules are still vague, and enforcement looks nearly impossible as the parameters of the NIL world are still being set.
“NIL is a long ways from being settled and governed because there is nobody that is in charge of NIL right now,” Oklahoma State football coach Mike Gundy said last week at Big 12 media days in Arlington. “My opinion is in a couple of years it will settle, where it will go I have no idea. It’s running a little out of control right now.”
The intent of NIL was that a player could make some money based on their name, image and likeness on a product endorsement; that they could use their social media accounts to make some money on the side.
What has happened is schools are using the “NIL” tag to collectively gather money to entice players to attend that university for nothing in return. It is being used as a recruiting tool, which was never the intent.
“Once they get it out of the recruiting aspect, it will return to what name, image, likeness should be,” Gundy said.
THE HOPE among college athletics administrators and coaches is that a rule book with a prayer of semi-enforceable parameters will come, perhaps in the form of a “salary cap.”
“I do think that will come, more likely from the NCAA rather than state or federal governments; they’ve made that clear they are not interested in doing anything,” said Brent Cunningham, who runs Think NIL, a collective of TCU student-athletes who are compensated for serving as TCU ambassadors.
“The NCAA may wise up and put together legislation. They had it last year but they were afraid to be sued.”
