How many times has criticism of our football program, unexpected losses, and our record against Ohio State been met with the response that they pay their players and Michigan runs a ‘clean program’? Or the frequent references to ‘McDonald’s bags of money’ distributed by the consistently successful SEC teams?
The SCOTUS ruling, new state laws by dozens of states including Michigan, and the new NCAA rules have changed all of that. The NCAA rules and Michigan state law regarding NIL prohibits paying recruits to attend a particular school. But once enrolled, it’s between the player and the donor paying for the use of their name, image or likeness to determine how much they’ll be paid and how much (or how little) he/she has to do to get the NIL payment. The schools have all set rules to protect their logos and other intellectual property and prohibitions against immoral or illegal activities. Beyond that it’s a wide open market.
I hate the recent NIL decisions and rules. But not because student-athletes shouldn’t have the opportunity to be paid for their athletic achievements. Rather because of how such payments are certain to be overused and abused.
NIL is here to stay. No higher ruling than that of the U.S. Supreme Court is necessary to assure that. So all the under-the-table secrecy surrounding the payment of players is no longer necessary. It’ll only be a question of which schools have the supporters with the deepest pockets. Payments to recruits won’t be necessary when it becomes clear how much compensation is being spread around to players once they are enrolled.
As much as I hate what is going to happen, NIL removes the excuse of not being able to compete with ‘dirty programs’. Michigan has one of the largest number of alumni and fans who are successful enough financially to out-spend just about any other school for the best players.
NIL will be great for student-athletes, particularly the more talented ones, but I hate what NIL will do to college sports.
The SCOTUS ruling, new state laws by dozens of states including Michigan, and the new NCAA rules have changed all of that. The NCAA rules and Michigan state law regarding NIL prohibits paying recruits to attend a particular school. But once enrolled, it’s between the player and the donor paying for the use of their name, image or likeness to determine how much they’ll be paid and how much (or how little) he/she has to do to get the NIL payment. The schools have all set rules to protect their logos and other intellectual property and prohibitions against immoral or illegal activities. Beyond that it’s a wide open market.
I hate the recent NIL decisions and rules. But not because student-athletes shouldn’t have the opportunity to be paid for their athletic achievements. Rather because of how such payments are certain to be overused and abused.
NIL is here to stay. No higher ruling than that of the U.S. Supreme Court is necessary to assure that. So all the under-the-table secrecy surrounding the payment of players is no longer necessary. It’ll only be a question of which schools have the supporters with the deepest pockets. Payments to recruits won’t be necessary when it becomes clear how much compensation is being spread around to players once they are enrolled.
As much as I hate what is going to happen, NIL removes the excuse of not being able to compete with ‘dirty programs’. Michigan has one of the largest number of alumni and fans who are successful enough financially to out-spend just about any other school for the best players.
NIL will be great for student-athletes, particularly the more talented ones, but I hate what NIL will do to college sports.
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