Last summer, following the approval of the House settlement, college administrators celebrated the arrival of a more regulated name, image and likeness (NIL) system that would curtail (in their words) the “false market” for athletes’ services and lead to a “market correction.”
Athletic departments can pay student-athletes up to $20.5 million this school year, and the creation of the College Sports Commission by the Power 4 conferences (not the NCAA) to enforce provisions of the House settlement requires that each deal meet a “valid business purpose” and fall within an approved range of compensation.
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The first test of this “market correction” theory is currently underway. While the transfer portal does not officially open until Jan. 2, agents have been quietly shopping their clients all season, and now, college football general managers are negotiating deals for players known to be entering the portal.
The Athletic spoke with agents, GMs and school collectives to get a sense of whether the dawn of revenue sharing, coupled with more oversight of third-party NIL deals through the College Sports Commission, has reined in the so-called “wild, wild West.”
The consensus answer: Absolutely not.
If anything, the numbers are even higher than last year.
“It’s the same people who predicted coaches’ salaries would be suppressed,” said a
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