College sports has entered its free agency period

Picture from GMTM

It’s a tale as old as time, the idea of college athletes getting paid for participating in collegiate sports, one of the United States’ highest-revenue industries. These athletes are the hottest up-and-coming names, and they help their respective schools make money in turning up crowds and fans, it would make sense their likeness earns them a bit of the dough share. After all, the legacies of some schools in college sports might rely on just a few players. Look no further than the likes of Iowa women’s basketball, a program forever entranced with their now WNBA star Caitlin Clark, a player who redefined women’s basketball itself as well as the gold and black of Iowa. For players that redefine the game, that are sure-shot future stars, it’s a no-brainer they should be considered in compensation for their legacies being paved. Sometimes, a simple jersey retirement or arena being named after them is never enough to surmount the profile they brought to their respective school.

Enter NIL: Name, Image, Likeness. This is an athlete’s legal right to control how their image is used, in a commercial setting. The NIL idea encourages college athletes to get a head start on professionalism and invest in themselves early. Universities set up their athletes well, giving them business advice and training before reaching deals with agencies and becoming pros before they enter the big leagues. Such deals witnessed are sneaker endorsements, dorm essentials, fast-food chain partnerships, or even local stores giving such players an official sponsorship. It’s certainly a far cry from the once-amateur world of college sports, but it rewards such athletes for being trendsetters. It also gives these athletes a good set-up for future business ventures.

Thilo Kunkel, an associate professor at Temple University’s School of Sport, Tourism, and Hospitality Management, explains that the NCAA was founded on “amateurism, or unpaid participation” in 1906. For well over a century, the NCAA had athletes who simply were college students who happened to be making headlines as athletes. NIL was not a thing, but the question always floated around of whether these college competitors should earn something for representing their school, and whether it was the schools paying them, or simply brand deals. Kunkel explains that there were two crucial steps to the NIL growing to what it is today, with the “the Fair Pay to Play Act proposed in California in 2019, which allowed student-athletes in the state of California to benefit from their NIL,” and later the Supreme Court ruling in June 2021, NCAA v. Alston. The case “ruled the NCAA’s restrictions on providing college athletes with non-cash compensation for academic-related purposes was in violation of anti-trust laws.” Now, NIL rules, or lack thereof, are in full effect. From the years 2021 to 2023, as a result of the NCAA v Alston case, the NCAA shifted its transfer policy. The NCAA typically would bar their transferred players from half a season to an entire year, in the first year they transferred, but now the organization allows their athletes to have one free transfer without suspension.

The one free transfer rule stood tall and was liked by fans, allowing athletes who needed a change of scenery to get one chance to see to their needs, without fear of losing out on an entire year of playing time. Yet, in May 2024, the Department of Justice ruled that the suspensions on transfers after their first unrestricted transfer, stating, “the rule limited competition for college athletes and restricted their ability to transfer to colleges and universities that provided better educational and athletic opportunities for them.” Every athlete who previously was suspended a season, if they had not yet lost all of their NCAA eligibility, would be granted an additional year of eligibility. Noah Henderson, a sports management professor at Loyola University Chicago, claims the ruling produced “a system where, after every season, all players can become what is known in the professional ranks as an unrestricted free agent.” Amateurism is essentially dead, as college athletes have now created a company out of their name. It’s akin to the Jay-Z line on Kanye West’s song “Diamonds from Sierra Leone,” where Jay-Z claims, “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” College athletes are no longer students who play sports, athletics and money now come first.

Along with the unrestricted frenzy of practical free agency in the college world, the biggest change of the times is the fact college athletes are getting paid directly from the schools themselves, and not simple brand deals, as the NCAA intended. Professor Kunkel explains that NIL collectives are now the number one component of the new age of college athlete funding, explaining they are “organizations that collect funds from businesses and boosters to facilitate NIL deals for athletes, to convince athletes to commit to their school over others.” Even just college recruiting has now built its own business aspect, with schools now bidding for players with money instead of promoting their championship rings, conference trophies, and legacies built at that school. West Point graduate and speaker ML Cavanaugh states that NIL collectives have turned college sports into “a cross between speed dating and a pickup game. It’s like attempting leadership inside a washing machine. Coaches literally buy time-limited ‘loyalty’ with car dealership dollars.”

Cavanaugh sets up an example of a Notre Dame versus Army football game. The Army team is prohibited by federal law to participate in endorsements or certain scholarships, meanwhile, the Notre Dame team will have been built from the ground up by NIL deals, paying their players directly. Cavanaugh explains, “When Army lines up against Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish roster will have been bought and paid for with millions of dollars. The quarterback alone, lured away from Duke this past offseason, cost a cool mil.”

Former Wake Forest football players Cody Cater and Claude Bragg are among some of those former college athletes who believe the NIL age has brought a negative, money-focused side to college sports, an end to the excitement seen in the traditions of the institution. Bragg notes that college recruitment, one of the most exciting parts of the college sports experience as players typically had hard choices to make on if they wanted to play for one powerhouse or build their legacy to a smaller college, has “diminished.”

“There’s not a great reason for a coach to want to go and recruit a green high school kid when there are so many great players in the transfer portal who are trained well and have experience,” Bragg claims. Leaning into criticizing the transfer portal and the intentions of the players entering it, Bragg believes money talks when it comes to choosing where to go to play, no longer choosing colleges for historical appeal or even coaching. “There’s been a shift from a team perspective to a really individualistic perspective,” Bragg notes, “which is certainly unhealthy.”

Infographic from Calvin Lymper

As the college athletic field moves from the idea of “bleeding for your team” to “every man for themselves,” rivalries and loyalty are both being lost. No longer will players serve their entire four-year term at the collegiate level with one school. Teams will begin to lose retired numbers, as players will flip-flop so much that the college pros once played for will never matter anymore. Longtime fans of a certain team will have to adapt to re-learning their school’s entire roster for a certain sport because of players moving around so much.

If the NCAA does not attempt the appeal the rulings of the DOJ, and attempt to go back to transfer suspensions or invoke any restrictions on NIL deals, the money sums will only grow bigger, loyalty and the spirit of rivalry will continue to wane, and college athletics will become more and more like glorified minor leagues to pro sports. Experts and former college athletes, as well as many fans, agree that there is a dark path the NCAA is heading into. It is a path that led legendary coaches like Alabama’s Nick Saban to retire and rethink his future in leading college sports. Without any possibility of restriction in the coming seasons, players will continue to enter the transfer portal at historical rates, and the college sports world may never return to the high-spirited world it once was.