NCAA feared paying athletes would ruin college sports, but it hasn’t, of course
Former Michigan running back Blake Corum was paid at least $480,000 in NIL money last season, and former Wolverines quarterback J.J. McCarthy also cashed in on the school’s run to the national title.
Jose Juarez/AP
Until recently, if you were a Division I college athlete and made any money, it better have come from your mom, dad or Uncle Jimmy. Or from a summer job mowing grass.
You sure couldn’t make it from what you were really good at: your sport.
Now? Bombs away, kids. Get some of that name, image and likeness cash.
The reason it’s like this is because the NCAA — the National Consortium of Aging Antiquarians — never even considered letting athletes have some of the swelling sports-money pie. The result is barely regulated chaos.
The courts made it so. As it turns out, making money in the United States is legal, even for college students.
Who would have guessed?
Since 2021, college athletes have been allowed to make money off their name, image and likeness and to enter yearly the ‘‘Wheel of Fortune’’-like thing called the transfer portal. In essence, college athletes now can get rich and relocate yearly to any college that will have them.
Just like the coaches always could.
The portal means teams change their rosters fast, so the recruiting trail never ends. As Colorado coach ‘‘Neon’’ Deion Sanders has said, you don’t show veteran recruits the library; you show them the bling.
Take Northwestern and its quarterback situation. Part-time 2023 starter Brendan Sullivan entered the portal in late April. Part-time starter and former South Carolina quarterback Ryan Hilinski, who will be 24 in October, is standing pat. Mike Wright, late of Vanderbilt and Mississippi State, just came in through the portal and is looking to start for the Wildcats. The main man last season, Ben Bryant, finally graduated after basically quarterbacking at four programs: Cincinnati, then Eastern Michigan, then back to Cincinnati, then on to Northwestern.
The transfer athletes are always on the lookout for a school that offers a starting spot, a better chance to win, a better coaching staff, a better climate, a better almost anything. And, yes, a better NIL deal.
The funny thing is, the NCAA had cried forever that if amateur college athletes essentially became pros, the end of college sports was nigh.
High on the end-of-times list was Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney. Almost a decade ago, he said: ‘‘As far as paying players, professionalizing college athletics, that’s where you lose me. I’ll go do something else because there’s enough entitlement in this world as it is.’’
Let’s check. Golly, Swinney still is coaching at Clemson. Nor did players making money cause any lack of interest in college sports.
According to analytics, total viewing of college football was up 12% last season and 28% in the last five seasons. Michael Mulvihill, the president of insights and analytics at Fox Corp., said last fall: ‘‘I don’t know what in all of TV is trending any better than CFB [college football].’’
The money is out there, and it hasn’t hurt a thing but orderliness. The old indentured-servant system of college sports worked so well that the beneficiaries — all the adults — hated to see it go.
But consider that Michigan likely had as many rabid followers and interest last season as any football school anywhere. Its star player, running back Blake Corum, now with the Rams, was making big coin there, and it upset nothing — at least not with his teammates. He told Sports Illustrated that, because of NIL money, he was in ‘‘the 1%,’’ which in Michigan meant he was making at least $480,000.
Corum and then-Wolverines quarterback J.J. McCarthy, a fellow wealthy NIL mate, made a point of sharing riches with teammates. Of course, many teammates had their own deals. Michigan guard Trevor Keegan said: ‘‘From the Big Ten championship to the bowl game, I think I made, like, $50,000 to $70,000 that month alone.’’
It’s the Wild West, and a mercenary, devoted, on-the-make star such as Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders, Deion’s son, reportedly makes $3.8 million.
Former NU quarterback Bryant told me that when you put your name in the portal, ‘‘your phone starts blowing up immediately’’ from coaches calling. Those coaches don’t pay the NIL money, but they might know where that money can be found.
This all will sort itself out someday. Maybe soon, the athletes will become actual employees of the schools, as they’ve been all along, just unpaid. Till then, we can chuckle at geezers’ laments about that potential fall of civilization.
‘‘Should student-athletes be employees?’’ Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said not long ago. ‘‘Jesus criminy, are you crazy?’’
Could be.