If you have paid any attention to college sports in the past couple of years, you have noticed that there has been a drastic reworking of the top teams and conferences due to athletes and teams following the flow of money. Back in 2021, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) allowed student-athletes to be paid for their name, image, and likeness (NIL). This one change will lead to the downfall of college sports because it is starting to take away the things that make college sports great.
Now that the athletes can get paid by the schools, money is a major factor in determining where they go to play. Before NIL, the top recruited athletes went to the schools with the programs, with previous success, or high-level player development.
The successful programs used to be based on tradition, high level coaching, and strong fan bases. When money is thrown into the mix, the schools that are willing to pony up the most money are the ones that land the best athletes. Because of this, it has become increasingly difficult for schools to build programs that develop players and have a consistent level of play. This makes the school’s athletic programs lose their identity. When each team exchanges players year after year, program development will become impossible. Fans are going to have an extremely difficult time staying attached to their favorite teams if they don’t even recognize the players on their team each year.
Another major impact of NIL is the upcoming roster cuts that the NCAA is requiring teams to have. For example, college football teams used to be allowed to have up to 150 players on their roster. Now, that number has been cut down to 105. This is due to a lawsuit regarding the payment of college athletes. Since the NCAA is required to pay reparations to athletes, they cut down the roster sizes as a result. The ones most affected by this are the walk-on athletes.
A walk-on athlete is someone who was not offered a scholarship to play for a school but was good enough to try out and make the team. This gave players that did not get many looks from the top schools an opportunity to display their talent in front of the coaches. A great example of this is Baker Mayfield. He made the decision to walk on at Texas Tech University, despite getting offers from smaller D-1 schools.
Eventually, Mayfield worked his way up the depth chart and became the starting quarterback. He then became the first and only walk-on player to win the Heisman and was drafted as the number one overall pick in the 2018 NFL draft.
Remarkable stories like these are what NIL is starting to tear away from college sports. The underdog stories are what fans love about college athletics. Getting rid of walk-on athletes is a great way to make fans slowly lose interest in NCAA sports.
The effect of NIL that has been arguably the most prevalent in college sports is the formation of huge conferences. For example, conferences like the Big Ten and the SEC have seen the addition of major schools from all over the country. This led to the death of the Pac 12 conference due to schools like Oregon, UCLA, and USC all leaving to join larger conferences.
These major conference changes make college sports much less entertaining. They get rid of local rivalries and make the postseason much less interesting. We used to have to wait to watch the top teams from each conference battle it out in the most important, high stakes playoff games. Now, the top teams can play each other multiple times throughout the year due to them being in the same conference. It’s yet another example of college sports losing their identity and slowly becoming less fun to watch as a result of NIL.
College sports are one of the most beloved forms of entertainment in America. Events like March Madness or the College Football Playoffs are watched and enjoyed by millions of people. Most importantly, fans establish a close connection with their favorite schools’ team. Now, with all these drastic changes to the fundamental aspects of college sports, they have become increasingly difficult to love.
