What's Next When Current NIL Model Falls Apart?

College football may become almost unrecognizable once schools realize fans can't keep buying them players

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Feb 6, 2024 2:39 PM EST

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – When NIL first came around, it was supposed to be about players getting a cut of jersey sales, compensation if video games used their likeness, money from autograph signings and the chance to make a little cash promoting businesses and products.

Of course, it didn't take long for college athletics programs to turn that into simply buying players left and right like it's the old SWC days, but sorta kinda within the rules. What came of it is an unsustainable system of fans being pressured into purchasing players for their favorite universities.

It's a system that is doomed to fall apart sooner than later. Most programs don't have enough fans with money who are willing to give and give for the rest of their lives, and even the ones that do will eventually face donor fatigue.

So, with that in mind, this is the first of a two-part series looking into what might be next and how it plays out. Keep in mind there are unlimited directions things can go once the fan supplemented financial system collapses. The two being addressed just happen to be two feasible avenues that can be easily imagined as possibilities.

So the first centers around the football side of things. Obviously, there has been a lot of noise in the news in regard to the stability of NCAA football, so with that in mind, let's start creating a path forward.

Perhaps the two biggest nexus points are the cooperative agreement between the Big Ten and SEC to "lead" all of college football forward and Tennessee's blatant rebuke of the NCAA, calling the organization out and basically saying it no long has authority to enforce rules, especially in regard to NIL.

It has long been suspected the SEC and Big Ten will break off and form their own joint entity. That's why the conferences have been absorbing the most valuable properties in college athletics.

That phase of the process is almost complete. There's a little business to complete to with the ACC and cherry picking programs from there to finalize the puzzle, but this particular can is pretty far down the road.

What that leaves is the NIL situation to deal with. There is a clear desire among these two conferences to pay players, but how best to go about doing it is a bit murky.

This is where the NFL steps in. For the past two decades, sports-minded investors like Mark Cuban missed the boat on being able to take defunct known brands like the USFL and XFL and, instead of using it for a property full of back-ups, load it up with the best athletes between the ages of 18-21 money can buy as part of a 10-12 team league.

It would have drawn all the top athletes and made for a much better television product than watching guys compete to maybe one day be the last man on the Atlanta Falcons roster. With the merger of the Big Ten and SEC into an emancipated super conference, NFL execs will see dollar signs previously left on the table.

The NFL's biggest barrier to doing this is infrastructure. The universities' biggest barrier to creating the product they would like to have is paying for it and also knowing how to best negotiate high quality broadcast deals once ESPN is no longer able to pay its high rights fees or completely collapses.

This sets up an opportunity where college football is associated with the universities, but no longer the full responsibility. College athletes are no longer students. They are employees of the NFL, which means no more scholarships or going to class. They get a paycheck and pay for an apartment in the city to which they are drafted.

That's right. Recruiting is over. The NFL is running things. The universities provide the facilities, the athletics director now serves as the team general manager on behalf of the university, and the NFL allocates three scouts per school, one of which may be chosen by the school's GM, who, in the case of Arkansas, would be Hunter Yurachek.

He will be in charge of hiring the coaches, although the budget to do so will be provided to him by the NFL. The university gets a cut for using its name, mascot, facilities, a portion of merchandising and concessions while the NFL gets the rest for taking most of the headache off their hands.

Before we can get into the details of how this will work, there's the matter of evening up the divisions. The Big Ten is currently at 18 and the SEC is at 16. The easiest way to address this is by adding North Carolina and either Virginia Tech or Virginia to close a couple of holes in the large market map.

Once that's settled, it's time to outline the draft and how players will be contracted. The process will be simple. Each team gets to draft one player for each position on the field each year. The only exception to this will be kickers. Half the teams will be able to draft a field goal kicker on odd years and the other half will draft punters, then vice versa on even years.

That makes for 23 rounds so far. The players selected will be signed to 4-year contracts with supplemental picks for any athletes who become too injured to continue with their careers.

However, to make this a must-see product that will maximize value, the NFL enters into an agreement with the SEC-Big Ten organization to only draft its future players either from them or overseas. This means if anyone wants to see the future stars or wants to be a future star, being a member of these 36 teams is the gateway.

Of course, there are late bloomers or players who get overlooked in every class. Because of this, there will be one final round where each school gets to draft a player currently playing in whatever is left behind of college football. That player also gets a four-year contract, but can enter the NFL draft after the season during which he turns 21 if he chooses.

The way all these players are identified is through the scouts for each school. They scour the country for talent and submit a list of players in whom there is an interest. Then someone from the NFL reaches out to have a player sign a release if he is mutually interested in being drafted, then he attends one of our regional combines on the NFL's dime.

The draft will be a snake. The first round starts with the team with the worst record and goes down to the most recent champion like the current NFL draft. However, in the second round everyone in the top half of the picks shifts down a spot, which means the team with the No. 1 pick moves to No. 2 and the team that had the No. 18 pick shifts to No. 1 and the rotation continues the following rounds.

The same goes for the bottom 18 picks. This is because a lot of players who helped a team win a championship likely aged out, so to keep things balanced everyone gets at least one run through picking as high as possible in a round. However, the team with the first pick still gets the most high picks overall.

As for playoffs, it's pretty simple. There's an eight team playoff in each division played at the home of the higher seed with the champions of the Big Ten and SEC meeting in a neutral site title game. The schools with programs that host playoffs get to pocket a little extra money without having to risk financial loss if they have to travel for playoffs.

Fans win because they once again pay for their program the old-fashioned way – buying tickets, merchandise, sodas and tuning into the broadcasts and no longer have to hear the word transfer portal. Schools win because they are relieved of most of the financial burden and administration of college football.

Coaches win because now all they do is coach the team instead of running around begging donors and players to make their success possible. The NFL wins because it has more control over its incoming talent pool and an additional revenue stream.

It's not necessarily where this thing is going, but it's at least one possible path to the fallout that is the current NIL recruiting practices. It's going to fall apart. It's just a matter of when and what direction is goes after that.