College athletes have finally achieved the one goal they all have in common. No, not winning a National Championship, not everyone is able to do that. The common goal that I am referring to is the ability for student athletes to make money off of their skills, also known as NIL (Name Image and Likeness) money, allows student athletes to make money every time their name is used to advertise something. As great as it sounds, there are a lot of downfalls to students making thousands to millions of dollars while still in school.
One of the biggest problems with NIL money in schools comes down to ruining the balance of recruiting. In the days before college athletes could sign deals involving money with their schools, they used to attend because of coaching staff or academics.
Now, as American Public University put it in their NIL article, “Recruiting battles for student-athletes may increasingly hinge on the potential for NIL earnings.”
Many big schools have put millions of dollars into endorsing athletes so that they will come to their school. One of the best examples for this is Oregon University. The founder and CEO of Nike Phil Knight gave Oregon unlimited NIL money for recruiting so that they could land more prospects than other big name schools such as Georgia or Alabama. With that much money on the table for schools to use, recruiting comes too close to the line of bribery, which ruins recruiting for smaller schools since they have less money to spend, even if they have better programs or staff.
James Madison University is one of the schools highly affected by NIL money and in turn, the transfer portal. Many of their best football players made big statements for themselves during the 2023-2024 season, which led bigger schools to start paying more attention to them also. After the season a few of their players were offered larger NIL deals and full-ride scholarships from big name schools, leading them to enter the transfer portal and abandon JMU. The Dukes lost 23 players to the portal; mostly to Power 5 schools such as Indiana and Michigan State. Neither of those schools have better chances to win any national or conference titles than JMU, but they instead have the new obsession for college athletes. The American Public University also used their article to mention the lack of dedication college athletes have to their respective schools due to NIL.
“The ease of transferring can lead to a “free agent” mindset, where loyalty to the team and long-term development within a program are devalued,” wrote APU’s Sports Management professor; Dr. Shollenberger.
Despite all of the negative impacts left from NIL money on college football, there is a way to manage the money better.
The GC Talon staff wrote an article called “NIL Deals are Ruining College Football and Here’s Why” that explains how NIL money can make all schools and players, happy. They mentioned that each university or college should not be able to offer their own deals involving money since it causes recruiting to enter the territory of bribery. Instead, each student should collect their NIL deals from businesses and companies with no relation to the schools. The Talon staff used former Alabama cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry and his deal with Kool-Aid as an example. He was able to get his money from brand advertising, but also was able to go to Alabama with no bribery involved.
If the NCAA wants college football to continue gaining viewers and followers instead of losing them, they must fix the NIL problem before loyalty and recruiting rules no longer exist. The only clear solution right now is the one mentioned in GC Talon’s article, and unless schools attempt to reorganize the relationship between NIL money and college football, the sport will forever be ruined.
