The floodgates have opened. NIL deals have transformed college sports from amateur competition to a new marketplace. Teenagers are now earning six or even seven figures while still juggling homework and team lifts. Collectives at top football programs are valued in the hundreds of millions. Brand managers, tax advisers and personal trainers are being hired before some athletes ever step onto a college campus.

The House v. NCAA antitrust settlement isn’t just a shift in college athlete compensation. It’s a full-scale redefinition of what it means to play sports in America.

For decades, youth and college athletics followed a familiar arc: play hard, earn a scholarship, enjoy the game, maybe turn pro. Today, that arc has snapped. College athletes are now quasi-professionals, and the ripple effect is racing downstream. Parents of 12-year-olds are eyeing NIL opportunities. Middle schoolers are building personal brands. And universities are spending tens of millions just to stay in the game.

The old system is gone. And while the new one brings monetary opportunity, it also introduces massive trade-offs: emotional, educational and financial.

The American sports landscape will look unrecognizable in five years. While NIL will bring unprecedented financial success for a select group of athletes, it will also trigger the collapse of athletic diversity at the youth level. This gold rush to monetize name, image and likeness is full of unintended consequences. The scope of the House v. NCAA lawsuit is so massive, it will unintentionally crush entire sports and sideline thousands of athletes.........

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