On June 21st, 2021, the Supreme Court voted unanimously to grant college athletes the benefit of education related perquisites, laptops, paid internships, and supplementary paid opportunities, effectively negating the NCAA’s master/slave relationship it had promoted since the beginning of the twentieth century. In effect, the NCAA had been price-fixing the compensation given to their athletes. While many coaches and management leaders of the NCAA made millions in salary (The NCAA paid its president, Mark Emmert, nearly $3 million in salary for 2021), the student athletes were limited to scholarships and meal money. Those days are over. Katie bar the door—because the money-grubbers and grifters are on the doorstep.
Amateurism in the NCAA is moribund. Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) money is now available to the nearly half-million student athletes. Fixers and influencers can now pass out cash like Halloween candy. Athletes in your neighborhood will soon be on television, radio, billboards, and online pitching every imaginable service and product. Big money augurs an infection for the college sports America loves. Just as coaches search for talented NCAA players, those players will now pursue the best NIL offers. A college athlete can earn big money. Most will make little more than pocket money, but some will take in millions. That said, soon money may tempt high school players as well. Heck, at the risk of spreading fear, money might soon be offered to middle school kids who show great promise dribbling a ball or catching a pass. Given transfer portals, the gazillions of dollars from television contracts, NIL money falling from the sky, the anti-trust decision just made the NCAA a pointless organization—its principal purpose will be to arrange championship tournaments. Student athletes will soon drive brand new BMW convertibles to football practice, if they don’t already. Product endorsements will be forthcoming from children not old enough to enter a “R” rated movie. In theory, that may be a good thing for all those student athletes who have been exploited, but for those of us sitting in the stands, the changes are head-spinning. And off-putting.
The landscape in college sports will soon look familiar but will be fundamentally changed underneath the hood. Just as in professional sports, big name players will reap the largest rewards. The others, those players with the lesser talents will pick up a few hundred bucks from local businesses and sponsors. Players will not share equally, no, but money will always be a front-and-center topic. High-profile players will make millions of dollars. Think gold rush. Think homestead land rush. Think Black Friday holiday sales.
If you believe greed is good, then you’ll enjoy the future of college and high school sports. Entrepreneurs, influencers, agents—all the hyenas who hang around the watering holes in wait for their prey to get refreshed—are in the mood for a financial killing. Because fixers will pass out goodies to youngsters not yet old enough to buy a beer, chances for unethical and illegal financial arrangements are unavoidable. Recall the scene from Animal House, the food fight; metaphorically speaking that’s the future of “amateur” sports.