SAM TALKS SPORTS

With the emergence of Name, Image, & Likeness (NIL) and the transfer portal in college sports new challenges arise. Kids use to come out of high school and played solely for an education and a chance to get recognized to play at the next level. They played for the love of the sport not for the money that was offered. The ones overlooked by bigger schools now played with a chip on their shoulder to prove the doubters wrong. There was no dollar signs clouding judgement or luring kids to come play for one coach or another. The coaches did the recruiting. The coaches found the kids that fit their system. There was a relationship with your teammates, coaches, and training staff. There was camaraderie with those around you as you prepared to leave it all on the line in hope of a victory. You didn’t have to worry if your teammate would abandon you before the conclusion of post season play as to not miss the portal. 

But, alas, A new era has dawned on the once pure institution known as the NCAA. Kids see dollar signs as they enter college rather than education and camaraderie. Greed has set in and has ruined the once pure institution of college sports. Did the NCAA have its faults? Sure. But what organization doesn’t? Through its faults the play by the student athletes was still pure. That is not the case anymore. Now a booster can in essence purchase a player on the team. Championships can now be bought. The portal is nothing more than free agency and if a kid doesn’t like their pay, they can just up and leave without honoring their commitment. College athletes are now a commodity sold to the highest bidder. Don’t tell me for one second either that boosters do not have a say in who plays. Coaches may do the recruiting but if the boosters don’t like who is being recruited they won’t pay them. It’s become the Wild, Wild West out there and the fans are the ones left with the emotional highs and lows and all the anxiety associated with them.

HOW DO YOU FIX THE WILD, WILD WEST?

It’s an easy fix, if you can get everyone on board. This is Part 1 of a three part series where I will attempt to fix college sports as a whole and keep in tact the portal and NIL. Let’s begin with THE PORTAL. 

I have said since the portal launched in 2018 that it had the potential to level the playing field. Student athletes that were riding the bench and being hoarded by the bigger schools, now had options to seek playing time elsewhere and get the recognition they deserved. It also gave students recruited by a certain coach the ability to follow that coach wherever they may end up or choose a school entirely different that better fits their play style. No athlete should be forced to stay and play for a coach they don’t want to play for. And if that was all it was, I would not be writing about it now. But the waters have become muddied at an accelerated rate since the NIL was introduced in 2021. Student athletes started flooding the portal in hopes of cashing in and making money rather than staying loyal to the program paying for their education. 

The portal fix is a simple fix. 

1. Commit to your commitment. Barring a coaching change, student athletes must honor their commitment for 2 years. This will end the bouncing around. Freshmen cannot enter the portal. Sophomores can only enter the portal at the end of the 2nd Semester at their current institution. Juniors can only enter the portal if they have not previously entered the portal or if there was a coaching change.  That means that, barring a coaching change, a player can only enter the portal 1 time in their 4 year collegiate career.
2. Navigating the extra years of eligibility. I have been back and forth on this point. Do you punish a player that was injured and the team moved on from them? Or do you give them an opportunity to find favor elsewhere? I believe it would be most beneficial for everyone involved if the student athlete was given 1 extra portal entry to use at the beginning of their extra years of eligibility.
3. Separation of NIL & Portal. There has to be a 100% separation between the NIL funds and recruiting out of the portal. Student athletes should not be basing their decision based on the money promised to them. We are already seeing where that is failing as more and more athletes are entering the portal citing not being paid what they were promised. Coaches recruit based on talent and need. Once the recruiting process is final, then, and only then, will a player be able to negotiate any NIL money. College athletics is not  a career. You do not need to be a millionaire playing college sports. You are there for an education and a chance to get noticed to play at the next level. 

THE NIL fix is also a simple fix. The fact that the powers that be can’t fix it, just means they don’t want to fix it. They act like they are trying to create a professional league inside the NCAA that will only ruin college sports as a whole. So how do you fix it? You regulate it. 

1. Cap it. Put a cap on how much an individual can make per year. Again, these kids are there to get an education and play sports. They are not there to become millionaires. That comes later in life. 

Freshmen    $10,000 per Semester

Sophomore (RS Freshman)     $12,000 per Semester

Junior (RS Sophomore) / Non Portal    $14,000 per Semester / $18,000 per Semester

Senior (RS Junior) / Non Portal     $20,000 per Semester / $25,000 per Semester

(These numbers are arbitrary)

1. REWARD COMMITMENT. As you can see in the chart above, it is a good idea to incentivize commitment by offering more NIL for those who stay. Teach the kids to tough out the tough times and they will be rewarded for their efforts rather than teaching them to tuck tail and run the first time it gets hard.
2. ENDORSEMENT DEALS. Student athletes are free to explore their own endorsement deals. However, They may not exceed $100,000 per year and student athletes must maintain a 3.0 GPA in order to seek endorsement deals. If your GPA falls below a 3.0, you need to focus on your school work and not on money.
3. DEPARTMENT OF NIL & Endorsements. Each institute who wish to pay their players must have an NCAA sanctioned Deportment of NIL & Endorsements (DONE) in order to pay their players and keep track of grades and endorsements. The department will have all endorsement reviewed and will ensure the student athlete understands any contracts presented. The department will set up accounts for the students for endorsements to be paid into should the student maintain their 3.0 GPA. If a student’s GPA falls below 3.0, the remainder of the endorsement is null and void. The student will be paid a prorated rate upon completion of the semester or when their GPA rises above 3.0 for two consecutive reporting periods. The department would also monitor and distribute NIL funds in accordance with the above mentioned chart or a lesser agreed upon number between the institute and the student. The department would work in tandem with every other institutes department. It is it’s own entity and therefore a student athlete can transfer without the need to close out any NIL/Endorsement related accounts. 

THE FINAL ELEMENT needed to tame the Wild, Wild West is swift and damaging punishment for player tampering. Boosters, recruiters, and coaches must be held 100% accountable for even the tiniest form of player tampering. Setting the rules for NIL negotiations to only begin after a player has been signed will help but will not eliminate the issue. So how do you eliminate back door deals and player tampering? You maximize the punishment for the smallest of infractions. Punishments would include: 

1. LARGE FINES for boosters, recruiters, and coaches. Hit them hard enough in their pocket books and they will feel less inclined to play in the gray areas. Make it so egregiously inconvenient and expensive that they will be forced to stay on the straight and narrow to avoid loss of time, money, and the ability to support their institutions. Any fines collected would be sent to DONE to supplement operational costs.
2. LOSS OF ENDORSEMENT RIGHTS for businesses looking to endorse certain athletes. Businesses that go out and try to recruit players with endorsement deals on behalf of institutions, boosters, and coaches will receive NCAA wide bans on being able to endorse athletes. These bans can be in stages where 1st time offenders receive a 1 year ban where repeat offenders can receive permanent bans from ever being able to endorse a collegiate athlete. Large fines will also be administered to really drive home the point that these are student athletes receiving an education while playing the sport they love. Not commodities that can be traded and moved around to the highest bidder. Make it public. Make it shameful. Make it a complete annoyance to have to deal with. Again, all fines levied this way will be sent to DONE to supplement operational costs.
3. LOSS OF SCHOLARSHIPS for institutions across all sports. To make it 100% clear to every coach and every team on campus that tampering will not be tolerated, when tampering is found to be had, every program loses scholarships not just the guilty program. This will ensure that campuses as a whole follow the rules to a T to avoid campus wide backlash and loss of recruiting tools.

Are these guidelines harsh? Absolutely. There needs to be zero wiggle room when it comes to player tampering. It is not fair to the fans, the students, or the institutions. The only way to ensure tampering ends is to be as strict as possible and to impose hefty fines and punishments that make it not worth the trouble to skirt the rules. 

The goal here is to ensure the student athlete gets a proper education without money getting in the way and to ensure the integrity of college sports as a whole. Student athletes are going to college to get an education and play the game they love. They should not be going to college to cash in on sweet NIL/Endorsement deals while hopping around from team to team based on who can pay the most. It is time to bring back stability at the NCAA level of athletics and do away with mass portal entries and gaudy NIL paychecks. This idea is not just for the benefit of the NCAA but as well for the benefit of its student athletes as it teaches perseverance, loyalty, and integrity.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where we talk about the benefits of mass conference re-alignment and how that might change to landscape of college sports as a whole.