re: Perpetual free agency

quote:

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And even in the pro sports, there are limits...salary caps in football, luxury taxes in baseball, etc.

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That's because the players and owners have collectively bargained for all of those things. The NFL is monopoly. So is the NBA and MLB. They get around the anti-trust laws by collective bargaining. Otherwise, salary caps and other restrictions imposed by the business would be illegal.

NIL here is nuanced. It's not a pure pay-for-play because the schools/athletic departments are not actually paying players a salary for employment. It's essentially "outside" boosters/collectives agreeing to pay players for use of their NIL...in the event (wink-wink, nod-nod) that player chooses to play for the booster's preferred school. The NIL contracts don't state "we will pay you $_____amount in exchange for you playing for (insert school). They can't.

The pro-leagues are more structured because the actually have an employer/employee relationship. Thus, they can have employment contracts that are paid to the employee directly by the employer. So unless and until there is some sort of collective bargaining between the schools/conferences/NCAA and a players' union, the NIL landscape will continue to be the wild west because almost any measure of control the NCAA tries to assert over NIL will likely be struck down in the courts of violation of anti-trust laws.

The way it probably gets curtailed to some extent is when the boosters get to a point where they are tired of being perpetually fleeced for more and more money by college "free agents" and decide their ROI isn't worth the ever increasing payments.