Let me get this out of the way first. I am a fan of the transfer portal. I think there should be some limitations on the entire thing, but ultimately I am a fan of it. Kids should be able to move. Coaches move all the time and nobody blinks.
I also believe NIL came from a good place. Players should be able to make money off their own name. That part was right. The execution has been poor. There is a difference between a good idea and a good system, and we skipped straight past building the second one.
Living through the COVID eligibility ordeal, I understand why players wanted more time. Guys lost seasons. Guys lost development years. Guys lost the chance to put film out at the exact moment they needed it. I get all of that.
Here is the part I am exhausted by. Any time a decision gets made, lawyers come pouring in to challenge it.
When is enough actually enough?
That is the question nobody wants to answer. When is enough simply enough?
You really should not have six or seven years of playing college football. That is not college athletics anymore. That is a career path with a campus attached to it. At some point a rule has to exist, and at some point that rule has to hold.
The five for five rule is the best idea anyone has put on the table so far. Simple. Clean. Everybody knows the runway. It was immediately challenged.
There will never be a rule that is perfect. Somebody or some group will always get the short end of the stick. That is how rules work. That is how every system in life works. If we keep challenging everything, then eventually everyone is going to be screwed. Not just the people who feel wronged today. Everyone.
Professionals coming back to amateur sports
Now we have professionals coming back into amateur sports. This is ridiculous. There is no other way to say it.
The whole point of college athletics was development. Young players growing into something. Programs building rosters over time. Communities watching kids they recruited turn into players they recognize. Bringing pros back into that space breaks the entire premise.
And again, once it was challenged, lawyers came swarming in to challenge it. Same cycle. Same playbook. Same result.
I understand the view of doing what is best or right for your client. That is the job. I am not naive about it. But at some point we have to do what is right for the greater good of the sport. Somebody has to be willing to say that out loud.
Look at what it is doing to college sports
Look at what this is doing to college basketball. Look at what it is doing to college sports in general. Rosters turning over completely every year. Programs rebuilding from scratch annually. Fans not knowing half the team by November. Coaches recruiting their own locker room just to keep it together.
Some of that was always going to happen once movement opened up. Fine. But the constant legal churn on top of it means nothing ever settles. No rule gets to breathe long enough to see if it works. Every structure gets tested before it gets tried.
That is not reform. That is chaos with a filing fee.
This trickles all the way down
Needless to say, we have already seen what this has done to high school sports. And what it will continue to do.
Kids see the model. Families see the model. Everybody sees that movement is the answer and loyalty is optional. Transfer rules at the high school level are already a mess in most states. Add the pressure of NIL money at the next level and the message becomes clear pretty early. Chase it. Move for it. Argue it if somebody tells you no.
That is the part that bothers me most. This does not stay in college. It never stays in college. It works its way down into 15 and 16 year olds who now think every setback deserves an appeal.
There are fixes. Just not today
Another editorial on another day will get into the ideas to fix it. Firstly, making them employees would be the best start. Real contracts. Real terms. Real structure. If we are going to admit this is a business, then build it like one instead of pretending it is still 1985 with a rulebook nobody enforces.
That conversation deserves its own space, so I will save it.
Until then, we are going to keep living in this state of chaos and uncertainty. Rules made, rules challenged, rules overturned, everybody scrambling to figure out what the standard even is this month.
Anyone else tired?
Because I am. Not tired of players getting paid. Not tired of players having options. Tired of a system where no decision holds, no line means anything, and every answer gets dragged into court before the ink dries. That is exhausting. And it is not making anything better for the kids everybody claims to be fighting for.