quote:
The entire thing is stupid as frick and it’s almost like they’re intentionally trying to ruin college football in the same way they’ve ruined the NFL and a bunch of other classic American institutions.

Who is "they"? Some mysterious cabal headquartered in a remote swamp somewhere hell bent on "ruining" sports?

The USSC ruling basically "legalizing" NIL was LONG overdue. The fact that a politically and ideologically divided Court held such in a unanimous 9-0 vote tells you as much. It was absurd and, frankly, anti-capitalistic that business, and the schools themselves, could profit off of a players Name, Image and/or Likeness without any compensation to the players for use of his/her NIL.

The change in the transfer rules is really the big driver in college "free agency". But that genie has been let out of the bottle and is not going back in. In fact, even the NCAA's last effort to curb the unhindered transferring was eliminated...by the fans!!!! Including fans on here. The last vestige of control was the prohibition on 2X transfers. That is, you couldn't transfer again without sitting out a year (unless a grad student). But, fans and coaches of North Carolina football, West Virginia basketball, and even LSU (Jalen Cook), etc, refused to see past the short-term "win" of wanting the 2x transfers eligible NOW at expense of a greater future "loss". They got their wish. The 2X transfers are immediately eligible and it is unlikely that will change going forward.

So how do you try to manage this new world?

1. Acknowledge what has long been the case: College football is, first and foremost, a multi-billion dollar ENTERTAINMENT BUSINESS and a "scholastic extracurricular endeavor" a distant second. When conferences are signing billion dollar media rights deals, schools are generating millions in revenue, and coaches are being paid 8 figure annual salaries, it's a BUSINESS.

2. Allow the power conferences to break away from the NCAA to form their own league (this will eventually happen). In doing so, allow the players to be considered de facto "employees". That will allow them to form a union and collectively bargain with the new "league". I don't think you can necessarily "cap" NIL (a business owner can always choose to hire a player to promote his business), but it would allow the players to share in the revenue (just like the NFL) and the schools to be able to pay them directly. That's how you could develop a "salary cap" so to speak and other rules regarding contracts and transferring that under the current system would not stand up to judicial scrutiny. Want to implement a rule that prohibits the annual transferring? Have the players union and league agree to the rule. The courts will then be more likely to hold it enforceable because both sides will have agreed to it.

Now, the above is not so easy in practice because outside of college football and men's basketball, no other NCAA sport generates any significant profits. So you have to figure out a way as to how the WBB players, golfers, swimmers, etc will get paid "fairly" (which is a completely nebulous concept). Further complicating things is Title IX. From a pure business perspective, the only players who should be paid high salaries are football and men's basketball players because they are the only sports actually generating a profit. But that can't be the case here because the second one decides to pay the star QB much, much, more than the PG on the women's basketball team, Title IX challenges will start flying.