NIL Changed the Game, But Not Everyone's Cheering in the Stands Down South

“The” Ohio State University, with a star running back first nurtured at Ole Miss, won the most recent college football national championship. It seems eons ago. Recruiting is mostly over for the moment, but it never truly goes away, whether in the old ways of the past or through the new “transfer portal.” Four full months out from the start of another season, fans are already looking forward to the fall campaign and talking about it aplenty, but not in the usual manner. Sadly, they see their beloved sport slipping away. Their loyalties to favorite teams have tapered off because four years ago, somebody had the brilliant idea of paying college athletes, making them near-professionals, if not full-bore. This is a reference, of course, to “NIL,” or “Name, Image and Likeness,” a process by which the players are legally compensated for endorsements, appearances and other economic situations. Most fans, perhaps in an uncomfortable manner, liked the old system, the one whereby some athletes were paid “under the table,” which ran afoul of the rules, but who was looking? A few programs were caught by the ruling body, the NCAA, but the percentage was low. Here in the South, fans of other university teams always seemed to believe that the University of Alabama was a major culprit of the former system. Perhaps that’s because nobody could beat the Crimson Tide football team on a regular basis. “Alabama must be paying ‘em,” went the argument. Wouldn’t you just love to know who first thought of this NIL thing that has transformed the landscape of intercollegiate athletics? Shouldn’t that evil person be made known to the ticket-buying public? Somebody—-one human being somewhere—-had to be the first to decide college athletes should be paid for performing. I disagree with the popular notion that it was devised by a secret committee, forced to act from lawsuits brought by student-athletes who felt monetarily cheated by the system. While we’re at it, can someone at your favorite university verify that we are still talking about “student athletes?” Are these young people actually attending English 101? I believe that’s as important a question to be asked today as “how much are we paying that placekicker who’s missing all these kicks?” Seriously, when was the last time you read that Frankie Fastlegs was declared was”academically ineligible?” Do university athletic departments still hire academic advisers whose job is to ensure Frankie was in his Underwater Basket Weaving class all week, as he was expected to be? Many questions exist over this gridiron disorder. Some fans hope that the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the NCAA, will someday reassert its power over the games kids play, from water polo to football, and put an end to this madness. If not, there’s a clear and present danger that the fans will quit paying to watch and support the approximately 1,100 teams representing universities and colleges of the NCAA. How bad is the madness right now? This bad: The universities of Georgia and Oregon, two titans of the game, are fighting to obtain the services of a 5-star quarterback FELDER’S TURF TURN