As millions of fans looked on, college basketball stars Caitlin Clark of Iowa and Zach Edey of Purdue both lost their championship games. Clark was able to cash in on her NIL revenue—name, image and likeness—but that was not true of Zach Edey, a seven-foot-four scoring and rebounding machine. This disparity calls attention to several back stories.
In 2021, according to Businessinsider.com, “student athletes gained the right to make money from their names, images and likenesses.” In reality, the athlete-students were born with that right and previous to 2021, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) took it away.
People paid big money to see college athletes, but college and NCAA bosses reaped the profits from television rights and so forth. For the athletes, their tuition was payment in kind, and exploitation on a massive scale. Reform was long overdue.
According to athleticdirectoru.com, the first college athlete to profit from NIL was Chloe........