By Lucas Mittman
For over 100 years, college football has been a sacred Saturday tradition throughout the entirety of the United States. And with the emergence of color television in the 1950s and 60s, it became one of the most influential aspects of the American south and midwest. Before the emergence of NIL deals, supporting one’s own alma mater had simply meant buying jerseys, going to a game as a treat every few years, or simply watching on TV with old friends. Then on July 1st, 2021, everything changed.
July 1st was the day NIL deals became part of the college football experience. NIL stands for “Name, Image, and Likeness”. This basically means that college athletes can do what pro athletes have been doing for 50 years; sell their brand (themselves) to companies and corporations for a hefty paycheck.
The idea of NIL deals as a concept, called “improper benefits” for years, was heavily disputed. Arguably the most famous example of NIL deals before they became legal was the Reggie Bush incident. Reggie Bush was widely considered to be one of, if not the best, running back in all of college football. He won the Heisman Trophy in 2005, given to the best college football player in the country. However, following his college career, rumors began to spread that Bush and his family had received “improper benefits” during his time at USC. The NCAA decided to launch an investigation into these rumors. As a result of the investigation into Bush’s acceptance of money, he was forced to forfeit his Heisman trophy.
When the news of Bush’s improper benefits broke, people around the nation were saying that college athletes shouldn't get paid and that it will ruin the integrity of college football. But now, how much a college athlete will get paid is what will drive recruiting for years to come. Alabama, Ohio State, Georgia, Michigan, USC, and other top football schools will become the dominant powerhouses in recruiting, not due to their high levels of coaching or play, but because of the deals that the schools can offer players. For example, Quinn Ewers, the second highest rated high school recruit in history, originally committed to Ohio State, but when he was offered major NIL deals from corporations down near his home state of Texas, all of the sudden he transferred from Ohio State to Texas. In a recently published article, it was reported that in his tenure as the starting quarterback on the #22 ranked team in the nation, he is estimated to rake in nearly 4 million dollars in NIL deals. And that is with just the deals he has already made.
For reference, Reggie Bush lost his Heisman trophy for $300,000 over the span of three years. After news of the legalization of NIL deals, Bush tweeted, “I never cheated this game. That was what they wanted you to believe about me.”
Estimates from HuddleUp’s Joe Pompliano suggest that, due to Bush’s dominance of the game, he could have made somewhere around the $4 to $6 million dollar range annually while at USC. To put that into perspective, his Heisman Trophy and back-to-back national championship titles were stripped away for roughly 6% of what he would have earned with the new NIL rules and regulations.
Many people will argue that college athletes work just as hard if not harder than pro athletes between class and practice. What should happen to players, such as Reggie Bush, who in the past had been penalized for improper benefits? Should they be compensated by the NCAA? If they lost something, should it be returned? And how about the opposite: what of players who were some of the most dominant in the history of college football? Consider Archie Griffin, former Ohio State running back who won two Heisman Trophies, the only player to ever do so, or Tim Tebow, the winner of a Heisman Trophy and a national championship with the Florida Gators. Should they be compensated for those past successes? Once the long-standing debate over whether or not to pay college athletes has been settled, the next phase of this conversation will center around how to monitor it, or not. You can be sure the Talking Heads on TV and the administrators at some of the largest schools in the country will have plenty to say about that.
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