re: BayouTraditions and similar NIL “collectives” are offensive.

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Imagine a professional team pleading with fans to pay more money so that they can “offer their players more opportunities”. Total BS. If a player’s play on the field is good enough to warrant a local or national company offering them $$ in endorsements….GREAT! That’s how it’s supposed to work. Patrick Mahomes earning millions to do a stupid commercial with Jake from State Farm - NIL. The Chiefs going to fans and saying “Lets start a fund so we can pay players for their NIL so they will come to and stay in KC” is NOT effing NIL. When will the NCAA grow a pair and put an end to this madness?

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Can those of you doing all of this complaining about the new collective not be bothered to do a little basic research? NIL may be recent, but the reason we are here right now goes back a long way.

As long as Title IX exists and there are no exceptions added that would allow for payments to athletes made on a sliding scale based on the revenue a sport generates, there is nothing the NCAA or any conference or school can or will do. This has been discussed for YEARS. Any attempt to pay football players more than other college athletes, specifically female athletes, will immediately result in lawsuits and be shot down. It’s a federal law and it’s not going anywhere. It’s also already the reason that many men’s sports like wrestling, soccer and various Olympic sports at many schools have been closed down in an effort to equalize the number of non-revenue sports offered for men and women.

Go back and look at the added Cost of Attendance stipends that the NCAA pushed through in 2015 (went into effect in 2016). That is the closest they will ever get to being able to pay student athletes directly, but it’s still equal across all sports. Because of that, it’s just peanuts. FBS schools can afford to pay all of their athletes $3,000-$6,000 per year, but there’s no way they are going to pay them all living wage salaries. Schools in the SEC and Big 10 might be able to pull it off without going broke, but most of the athletic departments across the NCAA, including many P5 schools, would not remain financially solvent. That’s just the truth. The majority of FBS schools cannot generate enough revenue to pay every athlete on campus a real wage.

Your only real option to get around this is far worse than NIL. It’s the P5 seceding from the NCAA and all athletic departments permanently separating themselves from universities. Or at least college football (and possibly basketball) would have to do this. That’s the only way around Title IX. Would you rather have NIL or that? I don’t like NIL, but I’ll take it over the death of the entire G5 or it’s relegation to FCS.