MORGANTOWN — We are just mere weeks away from the beginning of a new landscape in college athletics.
As of July 1, the revenue sharing program stemming from the House settlement will allow universities to begin paying their athletes directly out of a capped pool of roughly $20.5 million for their services.
Now, this is not to be confused with Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) money, which college athletes have already been earning.
Basically, the House settlement was a decision that saw just how much conferences and their individual schools were earning through ever-growing TV deals, ticket sales and the likes and the courts ruled that college athletes deserved a cut.
Much like the NFL salary cap, that $20.5 million pool will continually grow over time, as TV deals continue to get larger, as do ticket sales, radio broadcasting rights and such.
And it basically opens up a new era of college athletes being official employees of their school.
Some will fight against that statement, but the bottom line is college athletes will be handed a paycheck. On that paycheck will likely be the school’s logo and official name. It will be signed by the school’s athletic director or president or someone in the finance office or some other higher-up from that school.
If that’s not being considered an employee of the school, well, we all know what it looks like.
The bigger question to be asked is whether or not college athletes are now professionals?
True, they’re not earning anything close to NFL or NBA salaries, but they are earning a salary nonetheless.
We are here to tell you today there is but one threshold to cross before we can truly refer to college athletes as professionals.
And that day is likely coming.
Let’s take the example of an NFL player. He’s paid a salary, so, too, are college athletes beginning July 1.
That player has the right to free agency, so do college athletes with the transfer portal.
He has the option to hold out for more money. Well, we all remember the story of former Tennessee quarterback Nico Iamaleava, who held himself out of spring drills earlier this year, because he was dissatisfied with his NIL money that was reportedly worth $2.4 million.
He ended up transferring to UCLA after Tennessee basically told him not to let the door hit him on the way out.
Ladies and gentlemen, the only experience remaining that a pro athlete can undergo that a college athlete can’t is being traded.
And if that sounds corny, too far-fetched or simply impossible, I want to see a show of hands of how many of us would have thought 20 years ago that college athletes would be earning actual paychecks from their schools.
My hand isn’t raised. I’m guessing your hand isn’t raised, either.
You may fire back that there are contracts involved between a player and the school. Beyond that, there are ethics.
Let’s talk about the contract, which used to be the National Letter of Intent (NLI), which binded an athlete to the school and the school to the athlete for one year.
The NLI was eliminated in 2024, in part because officials saw what was coming down the road with NIL and revenue sharing.
It’s basically a grant-in-aid agreement now that serves as that binding contract, which still comes in the form of a scholarship.
The guess from here is that future grant-in-aids will also spell out in more detail the percentages said athlete will earn from revenue sharing and the expectations that will follow in order for the athlete to earn the money.
All it would take to officially allow the trading of college athletes is the approval from the NCAA or the NCAA’s Division I Council to reword those grant-in-aids.
That’s it. No congressional hearings. No emergency summits where all the conferences meet at some discreet location to debate the topic.
Just the NCAA’s approval and some lawyer writing a trade clause into the grant-in-aid agreement.
It’s more difficult to pay your personal property taxes online than it would be to allow the trading of college athletes from one school to another.
Which brings us to the ethical stance.
As of right now, public sentiment is rather neutral on paying college athletes.
Most fan bases would agree that athletes deserve their cut. The biggest worry right now is how their favorite school is going to afford the payments and compete with everyone else.
Trust me, that’s going to change over time. As those caps continue to grow and the prices of tickets, hot dogs and beers grow right along with it, public sentiment is going to change.
As NIL deals continue to grow to the point where more than just a handful of college athletes earn more money than their coaches or college presidents, public sentiment is going to change.
As more and more stories like Iamaleava’s become more common in college sports, public sentiment will change.
Right now, everyone knows college sports is a big business, but the general feeling is sort of like, ‘Well, it’s not that big of a business.”
That’s going to change, believe me.
And when that five-star quarterback who made more money as a freshman in college than most of us will earn in our lifetimes suddenly turns into a bust, ethics be damned.
If your school could get a starting safety and right tackle for that bum, you pull that trigger in a heartbeat.
Because these are no longer just college kids. That may have been the proper thing to call them since the 1950s up until about two or three years ago.
But a handful of them are no more just college kids any more than the wishbone offense is innovative. Texas Tech softball pitcher NiJaree Canady will earn $1.2 million next season in NIL money. That’s on top of whatever the school will pay her in revenue sharing. Come on, is she just a college kid now?
They are paid professionals now. Sure, in some cases, they are still 19- and 20-year olds, but some will become 19- and 20-year olds who can afford things at 21 that most of us could never dream of affording in our lives.
That’s not the proper definition of a college kid.
It may not only be unethical, but also against the rules, to even consider trading a college athlete right now, but it may not always be that way.
The view from here is that day is coming sooner than you think.
