The NCAA, NIL, and the Downfall of College Football

It seems like almost every offseason, the college football world contends with an unprecedented situation tied to the ever-present, ill-defined, and always evolving concept of Name, Image, and Likeness. Known among college football fans as “NIL”, the term is almost assuredly going to make the majority of them groan, shudder, roll their eyes, puke, cry, and/or just have a downright bad time at its very mention. The reason being is nearly every college football program has felt the scorn of an anticipated recruit or fan-favorite vet deciding to take their talents elsewhere at the beckoning of a Brinks truck. As a Florida State faithful myself, our fanbase has watched catastrophic attrition unfold every offseason since Travis Hunter threw our hat on the ground back on Early Signing Day 2021.

But before you think I’m just a bitter Noles fan—I most definitely am, but that’s very much beside the point—I am a full supporter of NIL. Full stop. College athletes are entitled to profit from their own hard work and talent like any other profession allows. The fact that universities were reaping in tens of millions of dollars off their backs for 115 years was a more brazen heist than Bill Belichick convincing UNC he’d be a great fit for their head coaching vacancy.

To be clear, my bitterness and anger at NIL doesn’t lie with the players as they’re now legally exploiting the very system that illegally exploited them. All is fair in love, war, and money. My ire sits directly with the organization that ushered college athletics into this Wild West free-for-all — the NCAA.

Following the landmark US Supreme Court decision in NCAA v. Alston on June 21, 2021, NIL became the law of the land after all 9 justices voted in favor of Alston. Now, before we get into this any further, just think about that statement alone. In the year 2026, all 9 SCOTUS justices agreed the NCAA’s position was wrong. All 9 justices! I don’t think this country has agreed on anything like that in quite some time, which should just show you how futile the NCAA’s anti-NIL efforts were off the rip.

And like clockwork, the period immediately following the aftermath of NIL’s deemed legality was nothing short of a shitshow as college football entered into this brave new world. At first, it worked as initially intended with players signing brand deals with various companies. I don’t know why, but Bo Nix holding up a jug of Milo’s Tea will always remain ingrained in my head.

However, we all know now that this would not be NIL’s final form. First came the brand endorsements (harmless enough) accompanied by warnings from the NCAA that money could not be tied to recruiting incentives. Next was the rise of booster-backed “collectives” organized by individual schools to pay athletes directly on the side. Now we’ve arrived in 2026 where athletes can be paid directly by schools as part of NIL deals.

Do you see the pattern here? That stern warning the NCAA issued against NIL for recruiting efforts in 2022 was given a bird flip by the same member schools it was directed at. And for good reason. Once the NCAA’s financial hold was broken by Alston, what authority or use did the organization provide? According to their website, the NCAA’s mission is to “Provide a world-class athletics and academic experience for student-athletes that fosters lifelong well-being.” Well, considering there was no more facade about education exemptions from antitrust laws as determined by SCOTUS, the organization essentially rendered itself useless at its own behest. In the 2012 foreshadowing words of Ohio State QB Cardale Jones, the decision essentially affirmed that kids were not going to universities to “play school”, but to play football (sports).

Since the fateful 2021 decision was made to allow NIL in college athletics, the NCAA has continued to fight legal battles pertaining to both future and past payment eligibility of student-athletes. The House v. NCAA settlement in 2025 saw the organization ordered to pay out $2.8 billion in backpay to athletes who played in 2016 and onward. Further, it is ushering in a quasi-salary cap which is estimated to be around $20 million per year. Though it appears this runaway train is now being eased back on the track and into station, it will never erase the damage NCAA has done to college football and sports as a whole. Could you imagine what the landscape would look like now had the NCAA read the writing on the wall like the rest of us and spent their time and effort guiding us into the NIL era rather than fighting it every step of the way? It would look like approximately $300 million worth of time and effort since 2014 ($36 million alone in Alston) according to USA Today’s Steve Berkowitz’s reporting in May 2022 as referenced by Forbes.

And because of their efforts, college athletics has morphed into something absolutely unrecognizable from its predecessor in the 5 tumultuous years following the Alston decision. University traditions have become second fiddle, fanbases have no idea who is on their team that year until deals are inked—and sometimes even then we’ve now found it’s possible to be left in the lurch, @DarianMensah—and the game has gained a more corporate vibe than collegiate. Is it wrong? No, I agree players should be paid. Is it enjoyable? Absolutely not, because the ethereal feel that made college sports so great has virtually evaporated, and the greedy, cowardly, and now unequivocally irrelevant NCAA is the only one to blame.