It was a typical Saturday morning. After a tough week of assignments and tests, my usual early morning weekend ritual is to listen to a regional sports podcast about a certain unnamed local college basketball team that has been painful to follow this year. As I was drowning my season ending sorrows and ready to tie a mental bow on what has been a dreadful season, the commentators began to shift their focus to the potential hope and promise of next year. As my mental raincloud began to lift, the hosts started searching through the names of the current roster and evaluating those players’ potential to return for an additional year of eligibility, or possibly entering what has become a very magical place, the mysterious transfer portal. The most startling statement of the episode and where the future of college athletics might be pointing occurred when one of the reporters focused on the leading scorer from this past season and stated, “If I am the University, I am presenting a blank check and emptying NIL funds in order to get him to stay.” The statement made me think for a moment and the image of Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz came to mind with her infamous, “we’re not in Kansas anymore” statement as it relates to college athletics. No thoughts of loyalty to the university, working toward completing a degree, or improving the player’s skill as potential points in the player wanting to finish what he had started as a student athlete. It then dawned on me, just like Dorothy and Toto were uprooted and taken to a place far away, the future of college athletics appears to be destined toward an unrecognizable place.
Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) found its origins from a class action lawsuit filed by former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon in the late 2000’s. The filing centered around a key question that has existed for decades in college athletics, should amateur athletes receive monetary compensation for their athletic accomplishments? More recently, the question has shifted to, should athletes be compensated for their university profiting off of the name, image, and likeness of the student athlete? Currently, there has been a shift in which the NCAA has suspended the organization rules prohibiting athletes from selling the rights to their names, images, and likenesses. In doing so, the athletes are legally able to accept compensation for this benefit.
Much of the debate of right or wrong as it relates to NIL is increasing from day to day and season to season. The long term implications have yet to be felt, but the future of college athletics and the amateur state of the athlete appears to be in jeopardy. So much so that in a recent article by ESPN, former legendary Alabama football coach Nick Saban commented that, “What we now have is not college football–not college football as we know it. You hear someone use the word ‘student athlete.’ That does not exist. I think the consequences of NIL could come down the road when some of these guys get 28 or 29 years old that maybe didn’t prepare themselves for when they can’t play football anymore.” Saban went further in the article to explain that the changing face of college athletics and all that surrounds NIL played a significant role in his choosing to retire and walk away from one of the most prestigious coaching positions in college football.
Looking into my personal crystal ball and predicting the future of what college athletics may look like is a scary proposition. It feels as if the prestige and purity of amateur athletes competing not only for the spirit of their university but for the opportunity to compete at a professional level has taken a major hit. Instead of young athletes focusing on gaining a competitive edge or player development, many athletes are now sharing the same level of focus on volume of social media followers or product branding to enhance their NIL profile. Tales of student athletes spending countless hours training and honing their crafts are now being replaced by time spent on opportunities to profit off of autograph signings or marketing campaigns to bring awareness to their brand. As the upperclassmen at Priory begin to make their final college decisions or are just beginning their potential college searches, if at some place on the list of school “must haves” is a high profile collegiate sports program. In addition to the lure of long-standing traditions, stellar coaches, maybe now consider the depth of NIL pockets in order to stay competitive. In the changing face of college athletics, I wish we could go back to the time before these three dreaded initials, when it felt like there was “no place like home” in college athletics.
