The landscape of college sports is in the midst of a rapid transformation, brought on by a host of issues.
Student-athletes are taking advantage of new opportunities, while conference realignment is widening the gap between the bigger athletic programs and smaller universities.
Speakers at a recent Bradley University panel discussion say these changes will significantly alter the NCAA as we know it.
Through name, image and likeness [NIL] opportunities and the increasing use of the transfer portal, college athletes have gained more ability to control their careers and profit from them.
However, the panelists at the seventh annual Charley Steiner Symposium on Sports Communication last Thursday said these benefits have unintended consequences.
“I do think that it kind of de-emphasizes the educational aspect of it,” said Kenon Brown, a professor in the Department of Advertising and Public Relations at the University of Alabama and co-director of the Beyond Sports Initiative. “Again, they're called student-athletes; the sport is definitely part of their role. But they are students. They go to classes; they're trying to earn a degree.
“I'm wondering if you're going to have a situation where the students are really just going to be kind of like semi pro-players in the NIL at their colleges — where the classes aren’t going to matter as much, getting a degree isn’t going to matter as much as, ‘how much money can I make in the upcoming two or three years before I go ahead and jump to the pros?’”
Decided advantage
Janna Blais is the deputy director of athletics and senior women's administrator at Northwestern. She said the ability for athletes to make money through NIL deals has led to the rise of well-funded collectives that operate outside of university athletic departments.
That results in a recruiting inducement tool that gives more prominent athletic programs a decided advantage, she said, while also leaving non-revenue sports and women's programs behind.
“I’m hopeful that change will come in that we will have a bit of a more level playing field, and in some cases perhaps an artificial salary cap, when I think in the next 6-12 months, the collectives will be asked to come in house, like you'll be able to bring it in house to your athletics department,” Blais said. “What that's going to afford all of us is to make sure that Title IX law is impacting what we're giving to our student-athletes.
“What you're supposed to be doing under Title IX law is creating equitable opportunities for your men and your women, and providing those same types of resources and opportunities. Then you wouldn't be able to give a million dollars to the football program and not think about what kind of dollars you're going to give to the women.”
Paul Gullifor, a Bradley University sports communication professor, said the counter-argument in support of collectives claims that university athletic departments should be able to use whatever advantages they can in attracting top line talent.
“There are a lot of people that think, ‘Why shouldn't this be used as an inducement if a university has a lot of money through their collective?’” Gullifor said.
“Every university uses what resources it has to recruit student-athletes. Some recruit based on great educations, some recruit based on facilities, some show off their outstanding coaches. So, for those who would argue it should be used as an inducement. This is just one more tool in the toolbox of recruiting, and what's wrong with that?”
Gullifor said the college coaches he talks with all say they need to discuss NIL with potential recruits because the student-athletes always ask about it, adding that blurs the lines between what's an inducement and what's simply a recruiting pitch.
Switching schools
But he also sees a big problem in the ability for college athletes to switch universities at will.
“I absolutely hate the lessons of the transfer portal is teaching. It's teaching: ‘Don't worry about commitment. There doesn't need to be any loyalty. When things get rough, leave,’” he said. “These are terrible lessons to teach young people.”
Josh Dickhaus, director of Bradley’s Charley Steiner School of Sports Communication, said NIL is an example of good intentions gone astray.
“One of the things I've learned about the law is it's extremely interpretive. So what I call NIL from a legal perspective was best laid plans,” he said. “In theory, it was the right idea. But in practice and interpretation, it can be manipulated a lot — and it is being manipulated a lot.”
Brown said the court rulings that led to the creation of the NIL rules diminished the NCAA’s authority.
“The reason that NIL is considered the ‘wild, wild west’ right now is because the governing body that should be regulating this and actually keeping it in check really doesn't have the power that a lot of people assume they do,” he said. “This isn't new; it's just one of those things where NIL has really exposed the issues and holes in the NCAA and its governing power that were already there. It's just that they're more visible, they're more out in the open now because NIL has just become this monster.”
Blais noted there is no federal regulation of NIL funding, which means state laws govern the process — posing a big problem when athletes travel down the transfer portal road.
“If we really care about the student-athletes, we will change this and Congress will step in and help us do so,” she said. “There's probably 40 different state laws at this time across the country that are regulating the Name-Image-Likeness space, because we can't do it any other way.
“Until Congress allows us to make some blanket changes across the states, our student athletes coming into our institutions will truly not be fully aware of what can happen for them and what it means for them going from one state to another.”
Another big concern raised in the discussion is major conference realignment, with the Big Ten and SEC continually poaching schools from other leagues like the Pac-12. The panelists all agreed the financial impact of college football is driving the shifts in conference affiliations.
“Football at the collegiate level is built on a house of cards,” Blais said. “We saw that during COVID, when we couldn't bring in any type of revenue around our football programs. Even when we in the Big Ten chose to have a season — but there weren't any fans in the stands; there was no concessions to be sold, there were no parking fees to collect.
“Although you knew it already, it became very eye opening to understand just how impactful revenue is on the football side to be able to manage the rest of your athletics department.”
Cracks showing
Like Brown, Gullifor sees the three issues revealing cracks in the NCAA’s power and an unsustainable business model that ultimately could result in major football programs breaking away from Division I to form their own group.
“What you're really fundamentally seeing here is an erosion of the authority of the NCAA, with a corresponding era of student-athlete empowerment,” he said. “Now, student-athletes have power they didn't used to have: They can transfer at will, they can make money off name, image and likeness. The real existential threat, in my opinion, is: What happens to the NCAA, and who's going to govern this mess if it's not the NCAA?”
Dickhaus admits college sports may look very different in the next few years as the gap between major and mid-level programs widens.
“It begs the question — ‘existential’ is a great word — what are we doing here? It's one thing to chase the football dollar, which is why this is happening,” he said. “But is that the best thing for the student-athlete? Is that the intent of collegiate athletics?
“I think that especially when you get into things like NIL, transfer portal and conference realignment, you're going to have a select number of haves and a bunch of have-nots, and those have-nots eventually have to play the haves.”
