The way NIL money has changed college sports is creating chaos and every school is basically outbidding the other to get the best athletes they can.
The No. 1 ranked high school basketball prospect, AJ Dybansta, committed to Brigham Young University which caught a lot of people by surprise. Everyone wondered why he committed there then we all saw they offered $7 million in NIL money to play there. NIL money is what schools pay for use of an athlete’s name image and likeness.
This isn’t good for college basketball because the recruiting process has just turned into a bidding war. All of the best schools like Duke, North Carolina, Kentucky, etc.; don’t even get as many top recruits anymore because they just don’t offer as much money as other schools do.
The transfer portal is also becoming a big problem because fans can’t even to continue to root for their teams without the stars leaving after one year.
One of the top NCAA’s women’s basketball players, MiLaysia Fulwiley, just recently transferred from South Carolina to LSU.
Schools are just recruiting the best athletes in the country by trying to offer them as much money as they can.
I’m going to bring up AJ Dybansta once again. He was the last No. 1 recruit and was one of the very last athletes to commit. Everyone was wondering where he would go and he ended up going to a school that just offered him the most money.
NIL money all started because people and athletes themselves started advocating for athletes getting paid while playing college sports. It was many examples of the schools just using athletes image to bring in more money. This was a problem with the Fab Five from Michigan.
While playing at Michigan from 1991-1993, five basketball players, Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, Jalen Rose, Jimmy King, and Ray Jackson took Michigan to back-to-back national championship games.
Michigan was making millions off of those five because they were so good, everyone wanted to watch them play and buy merch with their likenesses. Not one of those five got a single penny from all the money they helped the school make.
This is one of the big examples of why NIL money could still be a good thing. Athletes are playing hard but at least now they are getting reward while playing and have something to play for.
On the other hand, NIL Money is getting out of hand because some athletes are taking advantage of it and it is slowly ruining college sports.
In the end, the NCAA needs to dial down on letting kids just choose their school all off of money. There should be a cutoff of how much money these athletes should be getting because if there isn’t one, NIL money is going to get out of hand.
