Charles Barkley calls out NIL in college football: 'We screwed up'

College football and other university sports have changed forever since the advent of NIL, allowing players to make money legally, but in the process it's also created plenty of pitfalls and scores of negative reactions ever since it was implemented.

Including now by Charles Barkley, who brought the subject up in conversation with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver during the league's All-Star festivities.

"We screwed up college sports with the NIL thing," Barkley said. "What can we do, the NBA, to get together with the colleges, because it is the wild, wild west on steroids literally between you've got college coaches leaving to take assistant jobs in the NFL, and things like that because they don't want to have to pay all these players."

Barkley added: "We're going to have to do something. Can you get together with the NCAA, because the NCAA, they're boneheads. You know, the reason I call them boneheads, they always reactive and once you react to something it's already out of control. So what do you think we're going to be able to do between the NIL and the G League?"

Silver didn't offer a definitive answer to the query, but noted that new NCAA head Charlie Baker is looking to create a single system to regulate the practice.

"I know he is frankly looking to change the whole system because now not just is it complicated with NIL and collectives, but it differs from state to state," he said.

"We all know what the NBA is about is competition, and you're quickly going to have the haves and have nots, whether it's college football or college basketball, where some teams will be playing by one set of rules and a whole separate team will be playing by a separate set of rules because they won't be able to afford to compete."

In short: everyone acknowledges the system doesn't work, but there are no concrete offers on the table for how to change it for good.

The advent of NIL has completely changed the game when it comes to college football programs attracting and — thanks to the transfer portal, another innovation — retaining the most important talent in the marketplace.

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