It has been nearly a year since Pandora’s Box was officially opened by the NCAA by allowing student athletes to make money off of their names, images or likeness called NIL.
Now thousands of athletes can receive compensation from businesses that want to use them as promotional tools. Most of Americans feel it was about time, but did the NCAA err in doing so?
Student athletes can be compensated but they have to let the schools know ahead of time before they sign with any company. Sounds like a piece of cake, right? But in reality not every student athlete will have the opportunity to make money off of themselves which will undoubtedly lead to conflicts in the respective locker rooms.
Whom or what will prevent a business from paying an athlete more money than the NCAA allows? Who’s to say it hasn’t happened yet? This whole mess can turn into a modern day shoot out at the OK Corral if the NCAA doesn’t open their eyes.
Along with NIL, the NCAA, in all their splendor, also decided to widen the process of transferring , basically turning it into free agency if you will, for athletes who want to leave one school for another.
Several hundreds of college athletes have taken advantage of the portal and the NCAA can’t stop it from happening.
With apologies to those who still believe in Santa and the Easter bunny, winning will take a step back to what is already turning into the most dominant thought for athletes, where can I go to diversify my portfolio?
The NCAA says it’s up to the schools themselves to police and make sure all rules and regulations are followed to the letter including a whole bunch of little stuff not many have considered, like taxes.
Who’s going to tell these 18-22 year old adults and make them understand they have to pay taxes? And who the hell is going to show them how to do it?
Nothing sinks college sports faster than dissension in the ranks to be specific. Which means we’re about to see programs sinking faster than the Titanic.
The easier explain all this, only a select few players will get paid through their NIL deals, and fewer than few of those will ACTUALLY get paid.
This is all leading to players on the move, as well as coaches, players huddling with their accountants more than their teammates, making college sports less enjoyable to watch. The rich definitely get richer.
Get this: the NCAA makes nearly $1 billion dollars per year for March Madness. Nearly $600 million from the college football playoffs, expected to leap to close to 2 billion per year once the playoffs are expanded to 12 teams.
The athletes get nothing from that revenue. Amateurism in every sense of the word.
They’re chugging along those tracks now.
What could possibly go wrong?
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