By Wayne Dominowski, SBA Guest Commentary
(SB) – If it wasn’t money, it was pressure. In the case of the NCAA, it was probably both.
You’re already seeing the result: NIL (Name, Image, Likeness). Athletes (don’t call them student-athletes anymore; they are now businessmen/women) now are paid for their services. Big Bucks. On top of that, the collect on their autographs, developing their own merchandise,
products or services, and event appearances due to their personal celebrity.
Naturally, like everything surreal, dumb and dopey, this started in California in 2019.
Add to this the Transfer Portal. It actually was launched in 2018, but it wasn’t until 2021 that a transfer was automatically eligible to play right away for their new program.
Man oh man, time to live large.
It’s about money. Green stuff. It means a new car, one’s own apartment, money in the pocket, wine, women/men, parties, and everything in between.
Watching NCAA football and listening to dorky sports announcers, you wonder if there’s a home-grown player on the team – one who was recruited out of high school, made his way through practices, earned a roster spot, and played for the athletic scholarship he/she was granted.
Announcers gleefully report every player on the team who transferred from another school. Some have transferred two, three, and four times. Transfer portal activity has reached a staggering level. In 2023-24 alone, over 2,000 college athletes entered the portal in a 30-day period. How many made it on their new teams? 60%.
The portal has become a madness. Is it anarchy? Yes. Is it chaos? Yes. You’d think that left-wing Dems were behind the whole mess.
Here’s some facts:
*Alabama lost 27 players to the portal following Coach Nick Saban’s retirement. (He retired because he didn’t want to deal with NIL or the portal.)
*According to one report, 29.7% of the top 100 recruits from 2021-2023 transferred at least once. Now it’s two and three times.
*Top performers at small schools are regularly poached by large schools.
*NIL offers almost am irresistible pull for talented players to go to large schools.
Remember when grades were all-important in recruiting? Said one commentator: “Academic ineligibility actually used to be a thing. A kid might not play because of poor grades. But those days are long gone. We’re not even pretending anymore.”
The transfer portal has changed the face of college football.
The Anarchy side:
*It’s dismantled the traditional power structure where programs-controlled player movement.
*Eliminated the requirement for coach or program permission to transfer.
*It’s weakened established dynasties ability to hoard talent (Which in a way has put a dent into known football factory schools).
*It’s created a fluid, less predictable college football landscape.
The Chaos side
*Mass exodus after coaching changes (27 players leaving Alabama post-Saban).
*Constant roster turnover requiring year-round recruitment.
*NIL bidding wars for top talents.
*Smaller programs struggle to retain star players.
*High school recruitment has become secondary to transfer portal management.
For those of you who have played ball at one level or another, think about it. Say you are in high school, busted your behind for three years and rode the bench, and senior year has come and you are all set to play and BOOM! Some hot shot from Los Alamos or Timbuktu snakes his way in to your school and all of a sudden, he’s a star playing and you’re not.
College, the same thing. You’re beset with instant anger because players are coming out of the woodwork taking up positions on your team. The difference is they’re in it for the money. They’re getting paid big bucks and you’re Joe TooBad and Out-of-Luck and nobody… also, no money.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d be pissed. In fact, I’d be thinking of setting up Hit Squads on the team to take out the paid-for-free-loaders. I’d want to make their stay was hard, difficult, and brief, every hour, every day.
Another item: Athletic scholarships won’t mean diddley… not if an athlete learns that he is slated to be cannon fodder due to an older, experienced player sliding on board and taking over his position.
The younger kids are going to wise up to the play for pay act unfolding on college campuses. They’ll be counting the number of transfer portals at a given school and say, uh-uh, later for you. They’ll take their chance at a small college, or an NAIA school.
In the ever-evolving landscape of college sports, terms like "transfer portal" and "NIL" have become ubiquitous.
While these changes were meant to benefit athletes, they have also brought about new challenges. College football has a long history of finding ways to circumvent rules, making new regulations ineffective.
Although NIL was intended to provide a legal way for players to earn money, it has also opened the door for boosters to influence recruitment.
Even if players were paid by schools, illicit money from boosters would likely still find its way to players.
. While the idea of players finding better fits is positive, the portal has also led to tampering and unfair advantages for bigger schools.
Once tampering becomes rampant, it is challenging to regulate and control the transfer process. As long as breaking the rules outweighs the consequences, college football will continue to operate in the shadows, maintaining a dual-front approach.
Reading this, one wonders if the NCAA and everyone else involved in NIL and the transfer portal thought their actions through? Or is this another instance of “Live today, for tomorrow you die”?
