Cover photo courtesy of Action Network
As the college football offseason enters full swing, one major controversy has emerged: NIL. Name, image and likeness (NIL), is a law that allows college athletes to get paid based on those three features. The Supreme Court on June 21st, 2021, unanimously ruled in favor of the athletes and allowed them to receive NIL payments for the first time ever. It may seem like a blessing that college athletes are getting at least some share of the over $18 billion that they bring in, but the debate is not as simple as it seems.
Major college football programs have taken advantage of the system for their own benefit. These colleges have companies that have some connection to them, whether they are run by alumni, a university employee, or just someone with a cheering interest in the team. They use companies that are affiliated with them to pay athletes on the condition that they transfer to their school. This greatly skews the college football landscape and makes it virtually impossible for some schools to compete. Jordan Addison, a former receiver for The University of Pittsburgh, is a prime example of major college football programs tampering with the system. After winning the Biletnikoff Award, which is given out to the nation’s best receiver, The University of Southern California (USC) reached out to him about transferring while he was still at Pittsburgh. USC offered him $2 million to transfer to them, so he entered the transfer portal, and now a bidding war has broken out for him. USC is not the only school that has tampered and Addison is not the only player that has been offered large sums of money to transfer.
What is happening with Addison and other college football athletes turns the college football offseason into what free agency is in a professional sports league, except in college football some teams have an infinite salary cap and others have virtually zero salary cap. This is going to lead to a select set of teams consistently winning and others consistently losing. From a fan’s point of view, this makes college football much less entertaining knowing that the same few teams are going to be competitive every year. For the majority of these colleges that don’t spend as much money on football, it hurts their revenue and kills their school spirit. The school’s that do spend a lot of money on football, spend more money on their coaches than the players. This is 11th Grader Benji Cohn’s biggest worry about NIL. Benji thinks that “There shouldn’t be a situation where coaches are paid millions and athletes are paid nothing.” In 41 out of 50 states, college football and basketball coaches are the highest paid public workers. If some of this money was fairly given to players, it could solve many of the issues with NIL payments.
Outside of just college football, there is major inequity in NIL payments. While some athletes get seven-figure deals, others either get nothing or very little. The average NIL compensation for a D-I athlete is $471, $81 for a D-II athlete, and $47 for a D-III athlete. While this somewhat makes sense based on the revenue that they bring in at each level, NIL is not solving the problem it was meant to: giving athletes fair financial compensation. The inequity of NIL doesn’t just stop at the level of play. Gender inequity is also a major issue. Women only account for 28.3% of all NIL payments, and that number continues to drop year after year. Once again, NIL is not fair and does not treat all athletes equally.
In a perfect world, NIL would be a great solution to a decades-old problem of college athlete compensation, but we don’t live in a perfect world. NIL has been taken advantage of by some schools, which causes rampant transferring and an unfair college football landscape. Beyond football, NIL causes major problems with gender inequity and it does not give everyone an equal chance to get fair or adequate payment. Hopefully, at some point, the NCAA will figure out how to make NIL fair and equal for all student-athletes.
