Transfers, NIL, posturing, tampering. Welcome to the new era of collegiate athletics.
We've been heading in this direction for quite some time. The old saying goes, 'What's done in the dark will come to light.' If you believe that the outpouring of NIL money these players are receiving is a new phenomenon, then I have oceanfront property in Ohio to sell you.
The new era of NIL allows people to be less sneaky with their dealings. Now, it's an outward showing of wealth for boosters and the like to convince star players to come to play for their program.
If you're not playing the game, you're going to risk falling behind.
Now, there should be no limitation on collegiate players to pursue making money while risking their bodies playing football for entertainment. There is a finite number of years a player has and, more often than that, those years end upon leaving school.
However, we have programs openly accusing other programs of tampering in order to poach away talent from smaller football programs.
Ready or not, this is collegiate athletics.
Even before the transfer portal and NIL started getting out of control, college football was all about the have's and have-nots. If your facilities aren't up to par, if your staff budget isn't large or you simply can't attract the attention as some other schools do, you're going to be left in the dust.
The have-nots are at a further disadvantage than ever before.
How do you fix this? That's the million-dollar and often case more, question.
Instituting a NIL cap of some kind could help stop mega deals from careening out of control across the country. However, once money is involved, all sense of sensibility gets thrown out the window.
If people think NIL, the transfer portal and everything else in between is an ungoverned mess as things stand, it's only going to stand to ruin the game even further without some sort of cap on how much recruits can receive from boosters.
There's nothing wrong with the pursuit of life-changing money but there has to be some sort of control to stop programs essentially "purchasing" players in recruiting or the transfer portal.
Collegiate athletics, especially football and basketball are at an interesting crossroads. Do you continue to let things run wild and risk losing fan interest? Or do you try to create some sort of happy medium where people can be fairly compensated for their efforts?
Either way, this is collegiate athletics.
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