NIL needs to be regulated. Otherwise, it will be abused and players won't work or render services for the money they're being paid--which of course was what a lot of the cheating in major-college football and basketball was usually about--rich guys just giving kids money to sign with their school or as a reward for being a top player or somesuch. So without "guardrails," it will just devolve into legalized cheating, which is bull$hit.
And by regulated I mostly mean it needs to be monitored to see that deals are legit and are being legally executed by both parties. And who's going to do that? I don't know. If NIL is not regulated, it's just legalized cheating, which I suspect it is to a certain degree now. This is why offering NIL deals to top high-school prospects is, for me, corrupt. Recruiting the top prospects essentially becomes a bidding/bribery battle among schools. Is that REALLY want we want college athletics to be? Not me.
I have just read a summary of the Supreme Court decision that opened up this can of worms, and it astounds me in some ways. According to a summary by a law firm that has followed the issue, "the NCAA argued in the case that restrictions on education-related benefits were necessary to keep college sports distinct from professional sports through 'amateurism'--i.e., athletes who are uncompensated. But the Supreme Court disagreed, finding that relaxing restrictions on education-related benefits would not blur the distinction between college and professional sports. In fact, the Supreme Court pointed out that there was no evidence suggesting that academic awards would impair consumer interest in any way."
I'm not quite sure what that last sentence is supposed to mean, and I need to read the actual SCOTUS majority opinion, because I'm not sure what "education-related compensation" actually is. Paying student-athletes, or business deals for student-athletes, aren't what I'd describe as "education related," unless you have a very loose definition of the term. They are in college.
I don't think the SCOTUS case applied specifically to NIL, at least according to the synopsis I just read. It was about "education-related compensation" It mentions NIL as emerging separately and recently from state legislation--specifically bills passed by the states of Florida, Georgia and Alabama. They apparently were the first states to pass legislation enabling student-athletes to benefit from NIL deals. Southern/SEC schools: How funny! What a surprise! Not! And here's what's even funnier: Guess what state was next to try and pass pro-NIL legislation? How about...Ohio! Another not surprise! Apparently the legislation didn't pass in the Ohio legislature, for whatever reason--but the governor (perhaps an OSU alum?) penned an executive order permitting NIL deals for Ohio student-athletes. You don't think Ohio State and its well-connected boosters were going to let the SEC get a leg up on them via NIL, do you?
What astounds me is how SCOTUS justices, or anybody, could conclude that paying or giving money to student-athletes doesn't blur the distinction between college and professional sports. Of course it does. Pros are PAID. If you are paying college students, you've damn well blurred the distinction between college and pro sports--and of course EVERYBODY who follows major-college football and basketball has acknowledged for years that they've become quasi-professional in various ways.
For me, NIL deals for high-school prospects have to be strictly regulated or banned. Otherwise, you've turned recruiting into bribery contests, and that just means that the schools with the wealthiest/dirtiest boosters--the big schools for whom winning means the most (hello SEC plus Ohio State) will pay the most and get the best prospects. Indeed, the NCAA argued in Alston vs. the NCAA that restrictions on compensation were needed to //promote competition.// Its restrictions, it argued, were "pro-competitive." And that is EXACTLY right. Without them, the same 10/12 big-dog schools will buy all the top prospects and win all the games. One could point out that that's been the case anyway for a long time, and it's true: It's just that SEC schools plus OSU, Texas, Oklahoma, one or two others have used their top dollars for competitive advantage in all the other ways--better facilities, bigger recruiting budgets, more perks, etc.
The notion that the NCAA is "power-hungry" is nonsense. First, it's a member-driven organization. Major-college athletics has got crass, commercial, and, now, chaotic precisely because the NCAA has never had enough power to combat the commercialism that has corrupted major-college football.
We'll see how all this evolves.
. Good info here.
