College sports: You can’t level the playing field until you understand the paying field |
College sports is not broken because athletes started getting paid. It’s broken because we started paying them without anyone knowing how much.
Over the past three years, college athletics has transformed faster than at any point in its history. The old model based on scholarships as the only acceptable form of payment is gone. Courts rejected it, and the payment floodgates promptly opened.
Today’s athletes can earn money in multiple ways: direct revenue sharing from schools, NIL deals with businesses, booster-funded collectives and, in some cases, private arrangements that live entirely outside public view. None of this is theoretical anymore. A highly recruited quarterback choosing between two universities is no longer just asking about offensive schemes or facilities. He is asking about compensation packages. That is not the real problem.
Professional athletes get paid. Olympic athletes get paid. Coaches certainly get paid. The public has largely moved on from the argument that college players should be restricted to tuition and a meal plan while everyone else profits. The sport has not become chaotic because compensation exists. It has become chaotic because........