Reggie Bush Gets Candid on Future of NIL, Important Next Step for College Sports

Former USC Trojans star Reggie Bush is reclaiming his NIL legacy, and has advice for the NCAA on how to fix the issues in college sports.

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Former USC Trojans college football star Reggie Bush has a complicated legacy with NIL that is finally on the right track.

After being stripped of the Heisman Trophy he won in 2005 due to the NCAA finding that he received “improper benefits,” Bush had the trophy finally returned to him two decades later.

The college football legend and New Orleans Saints Super Bowl champion recently spoke with KTLA 5 Morning News on the future of name, image, and likeness deals and how to fix the trajectory of the current landscape.

While Bush could have a bitter outlook after being penalized for something that was rampant in college sports when it was prohibited and for which the rules have been eliminated, he sees the need for NIL.

“College football and basketball—it’s a big money business, right?” Bush said. “And they’re profiting a lot of money off of these players. So, these players deserve a piece of the pie. Right now, the NIL is out there for them.”

It’s hard to see college football as anything but a business, as NIL and the transfer portal have moved it further from an amateurism model by the day.

In line with that, Bush sees a clear need for the NCAA to recognize college athletes for what they truly are to their universities.

“The next step is for them to get paid by the universities as employees,” Bush said. “And then from there, they have to unionize, which they need to do to be able to collectively bargain all those different things.”

Bush played for USC in a time when athletes couldn’t move as freely as they do with the transfer portal, and he admits that he “doesn’t love everything about it.”

However, like many former stars, Bush sees the importance of control in the players’ hands.

“I’m straddling the fence because I love the fact that the players have more power back in their hands,” Bush said. “They have more control over their careers. One of the issues was, in the area I played in, a college football head coach could get fired or just resign and literally go get hired the next day.”

While some have called to re-implement the transfer portal rule of having to sit for a season after one free transfer, Bush warns against the effects of those parameters on athletes’ careers. 

“For football players and basketball players, missing a full year of play is tough on your career, and it’s hard to come back from," Bush said. "Many guys don’t recover from that. I love the fact that power is being put back into the players’ hands, but at the same time, I don’t want to see guys just jumping ship, just because there is an element of working through situations and also not being afraid of competition.”

Bush prided himself on not being afraid of competition and believed that’s what elevated the Trojans program.

He advocates for players to take charge of their futures, but he also offers wise guidance on overcoming challenges instead of rushing into the transfer portal at the first sign of fear.

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