If I am honest about it, it has always seemed a stretch to me that universities could financially benefit from their student athletes, without limit, in exchange for merely granting a scholarship. The guise for this logic was “amateur athletics”.

This blog is not an attempt to fully explore the pros and cons of the new NIL era, but rather a recognition that it’s here and trying to figure out what it means and where the various paths may take us.

However, I would also offer that there were many benefits to the soon-to-be-old ways of amateur athletics and I suspect that much will be lost in the new NIL world. There should be concern for certain young (even teenage) athletes whom will undoubtedly receive large sums of money without experience or guidance on how to manage the funds and contempt for the individuals whom will inevitably try to prey on these athletes for money. There will also be a sense of loss for something more trivial – the end of students playing for “the love of the game” and instead playing for a paycheck.