Student Opinion: NIL in College Needs Regulation
Launch the media gallery 1 playerOn January, 20th, The Ohio State Buckeyes were crowned as the 2025 College Football National Champions. Shortly after, many headlines dominated the news about how Ohio State’s roster was filled with players who had deals worth around 20 million dollars. It was also revealed that this wasn’t even the most expensive roster in college football.
The idea of college sports used to be that the kids were student athletes. Because they were still students in college, they were not paid and considered amateurs. In July 2021, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) approved for the policy of athletes benefiting off of their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). Just a few years into the change, the Buckeyes are not alone in having a college football roster worth over $20 million.
There are many reasons why the implementation of NIL was important. Playing sports in college, is essentially a full-time job for these athletes in addition to the schoolwork they have.
This often leaves the student athletes no time to be able to get a job. These student athletes aren’t always on a full-ride scholarship, and they may not even have a scholarship at all. Before the introduction of athletes being able to profit from their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL), many cases existed where students could struggle to meet basic needs. With NIL, colleges are able to use the revenue generated from their athletic programs and give it back to players. This removes a large disparity that used to exist where colleges were making revenue off of unpaid athletes.
While NIL is still a fairly new change to college sports, there has already been a significant shift in how colleges build their athletic rosters. Recruiting players can now often rely on how much money players can make at a certain school rather than how good of a fit the school is for them.
There have been instances where a player gets an NIL deal at one school, but leaves earning the money without ever playing at the school. Currently, a senior in high school is worth around three million dollars in NIL money without having played a single snap beyond the high school level.
Only about 20% of athletes earn money from NIL, and the ones who aren’t earning money are the ones who are much more likely to be struggling to meet needs. The players who take home the most money from NIL are the biggest stars in their respective sports, so large deals to them are insignificant as they will likely go to a professional league anyway.
There is still a large gap between how much college players earn compared to professionals, but the difference between college and professional sports is decreasing quickly. As colleges see a team like Ohio State win a national championship with an expensive roster, the idea that a team’s potential is mostly dependent on a price tag will become more prevalent.
With this, colleges that earn greater amounts of revenue will be better able to keep up with the trend. In turn, I believe a larger disparity will occur between big name programs and smaller programs.
This shift has already taken effect in college football. Schools are moving to different conferences to have the potential to earn more money. There used to be five power conferences in college football: SEC, Big 10, Big 12, PAC 12, and ACC. Now the PAC 12 conference has broken apart leaving only two teams behind as others moved into the Big 10 and Big 12. Additionally, large programs like Texas and Oklahoma left the Big 12 to join the SEC in hopes to earn more revenue.
NIL has altered the route that college sports are heading. Large deals for athletes make the difference between the collegiate and professional level minimal. To prevent this, the NCAA needs regulations to enforced on NIL. Some of the ways these regulations could work are by essentially putting in a salary cap for how much money can be allocated to teams. This might be challenging with the impact brands and sponsorships have, but another change is to limit the amount brands can give to athletes. More regulations on how players actually earn the money also need to be enforced, so athletes are encouraged to stay with a team once they sign a deal.
By implementing these regulations, college athletes can gain the benefits of being able to make money while in college without a distraction from a focus on their academics. The NCAA would be able to restore the idea of a student athlete being a student first.