“NIL has been going on forever; it just hasn’t been visible. Let’s not forget that at one point back in the 1980’s, five of the nine Southwest conference schools were on probation, and that’s just the five that were caught. This just legalizes it for all schools and fan bases to compete. Gone are the days of needing big money boosters, even average alumni or fans could have a hand in helping their teams.
“There’s a reason Nick Saban isn’t happy with NIL, and it’s not because he’s deeply concerned with the integrity of college sports. Sure, Lane Kiffin said we basically just “legalized cheating”, but I’m not so inclined to take the complaints of a man with as many NCAA violations as him too seriously. Ryan Day of Ohio State said to keep his team intact would cost $13 million, a tough moment for Ohio State, I know. In other words, they don’t believe they can pay that, and some of the talented players on that roster will go elsewhere. What NIL is doing is making it tougher for the Blue Bloods, and giving the Iowa State’s of the world a chance to capitalize. Sure the Blue Bloods will have an inherent advantage, but NIL will narrow that gap…”
Don’t count on it…the Bluebloods are the ones drawing on or near 100k and the ones with generous alums and are not going to lose many bidding wars. IMO it does not even the playing field, it simply allows schools like Alabama, Agy, Whorn, LSU, etc to bring their cheating ways out into the open…
What a spin job. Losing top recruits to Iowa state because Ohio state won’t be able to afford $13 million?
First off, they probably can, second, if iowa state offers more cash, the recruit will stil probably prefer to go to Ohio state for a slightly smaller payday because he also has the chance to hit the nfl.
I think it does level the playing field in some ways or gets closer for schools that would normally get hammered by the ncaa. In the past the sec etc we’re cheating under the table and their fellow schools nor the local reporters would investigate unlike just the sec. Now a school like UH can do some nil and not get hammered and it helps to be in big cities where a car dealership wants their name associated with local big time recruits like with tune and McCaskill etc. in the past , we’d get hammered giving them $100 dollars and now it’s legal. Big city schools and others can now do it legal and illegal boosters will have to come out from the dark and do legal or not do it. The athletic depts hate this bc it’s less money going to them vs the players themselves. I think the nil will help us bc we weren’t cheating bc of the fear of ncaa sanctions so it does help level the playing field for non blue bloods.
I have to say, I really hate this kind of false rhetoric.
NIL hasn’t been around forever and wasn’t done in the past. SMU donors couldn’t put their players, the ones they allegedly paid, in commercials, etc.
What that kind of lazy, idiotic, and misguided language does is to minimize and almost justify the cheating of the past… Not to mention by tying NIL to the blatant cheating of the past, they are promoting, willfully or otherwise, an “anything goes” mentality.
Just another attempt by lazy media to say “it’s always been this way”… When in fact it hasn’t.