The NIL has its good and bad. One one my fears has always been that it could wreck a locker room. While they're maybe a little envy if the local Chevy dealership gives one player a $75,000 pickup, it might not really disturb the locker room.
But the collective is a different story. Players see the collective dollars as "program controlled" money. From that viewpoint, when a few players are given big $ to stay with the team, other players start to question how much or little the program values them. For example, WR 1 has 40 catches for 320 yards. WR 2 has 35 catches for 298 yards. 1 gets $50k to not hit the portal. Now 2, who really had no thoughts of transferring, now feels that he deserves money too and starts a rumor that he's considering transferring in hope of getting the bag like WR 1. To appease him he's offered $10k, but he's pissed bc he feels that the program undervalues him as compared to his teammate.

Of course other player know of theses dealings. Some think the program was unfair to WR 2. Some are thinking where's my bag... maybe I should threaten or enter the portal to see if they value me. Some will actually enter the portal in hope of getting money like some of their teammates. For some other programs will offer $, and the players will expect MSU to match it.

Most programs are navigating these issues. I believe that we're having these very issues. This is quite the pickle for the programs and can be very difficult to manage. We are experiencing this at this moment. And yes, it's having a detrimental effect on our team. I'm glad that I'm not the one tasked with making this all work.