NIL has been something that college football has been talking about for years at this point. Paying players for the name, image, and likeness was the middle ground for how these top athletes can receive compensation for their efforts and play during their tenure at their respective universities.
It was only right since athletes were already getting paid illegally at the time and how much these colleges actually made off of their athletes, especially in football. Football is the big money maker for the majority of universities around the country. The NIL was a big change that was needed for the college sports landscape but it is far from perfect.
First issue to discuss is how there is no salary cap for teams. This is a big deal because this allows the bigger name brand teams to dominate the college football rankings year after year being able to spend as they please. We are already seeing an issue with this for conferences and how the SEC/BIG10 run the show.
There’s been talks about how the CFP should just be teams in those conferences which wouldn’t be fair to the rest of the FBS. A big reason for this is because of the resources these teams have from alumni and brand marketing to give them the luxury to have more money to spend on players. College football has been a big time sports business for a while now but it’s finally becoming more known to the public knowledge because of the financial changes these teams have to worry about.
Teams have made the personnel changes to help adjust to this new ERA of college football such as team GM’s and assistants to player personnel to help alleviate the stress off of one specific Coach.
This leads into the next issue of these bigger branded teams taking away the majority of top tier talent away from the other universities that might not be able to match the offers sent from these blue blood football programs.
This also has to do with college football allowing these players unlimited amount of transfers so each year is essentially a free agency experience on one year deals. Teams are getting frustrated having to try and compete with these other teams to keep their top talent. It essentially feels like certain schools/conferences are more like minor leagues grooming these players to become who they develop into and then they're all expected to transfer for more money. Not good for the overall competition across the CFB landscape.
As much as this effects teams, it has also effected players just as much. These players’ mindset now is all out whack taking away the love for the game and the prestige for the college being the first thing they should think of when committing to a program. Now the first thing players think of is the money and how much a college has to offer.
Full discretion, I am not talking for every player in the country but this does feel like a real issue worthy of bringing up for a good portion of NCAA football (aka Nico Iamaleava). This is a big issue for team morale and the getting continuity with the team/system which can also effect player development the more times a player moves from team to team.
Other “smaller” programs should start to add into the contracts of players the duration of these deals in the form of NFL contracts and the only way out of getting away from these deals would have to be through buyouts or other reasons that will be incorporated into the contracts.
There should be a cap on the amount of times to transfer since the college experience is typically 4-5 years anyways. This has been different as of late due to the Covid years and other players getting extension on their eligibilities. I believe this is coming to an end soon with that time period of the players that were deemed eligible for more playing years because of the loss of time or sitting out due to COVID. Also just having a cap for these teams in general will help with a lot of these issues.
This will help spread out the overall competition across the country and thus will help with viewership for the sport as well. The more competitive the better for college football which will keep the fans dialed in. The salary cap for teams should be different based off of revenue and the conference they are in.
This has been a big topic of discussion ever since the NIL became live. A lot of analysts have different opinions on how to fix these problems and there will continue to be issues to sort out since nothing is perfect. First step was implementation which NCAA did and now it’s time to adjust. Let’s see how the NCAA take action to making the sport even better.