Quote Originally Posted by Lord McBuckethead View Post
Well once they lost the supreme court case, the NCAA didn't have anything they could do. Players have rights, the same as any other student on campus. They should be able to make whatever money they can. Does that mean that the money requires them to stay at the school until they officially go through the draft? Maybe it could. I am 100% for the players having the ability to cash in however they want, but the school also needs protection against being extorted.

Seems to me, the universities missed the boat on this. They had the opportunity to set a earnings package for scholarship and walk-on players that would have avoided all of this. Mullen talked about it all the time, how players never had a dime to go out on a date. I am sure the plantation owners had an issue when they had to start paying the slaves as well. I am sure, the southern states are still feeling the effects to this day of their free labor gravy train ending. Same here with NCAA football. It is going to get uglier before it gets better, just like the economy of the southern US after the civil war.
That's not true. The NCAA could have set up rules related to NIL - they chose not to. They very easily could have created rules saying players can take no more than $100 for an autograph, and those must be sold at a sanctioned event. Or that players could sign legit endorsement deals with real companies - but that those contracts must produce an actual ad/commercial/etc. and not just be an organized slush fund to pay players. Or that the NCAA would set up a NIL board with players to negotiate deals that were industry wide like NCAA Football with EA Sports. The NCAA failed to act and it is going to ruin the game.