NIL vs University employees

As Employees the University would have to provide employment protection, manage things through HR, pay taxes, workers comp and be far more responsible for actions and insuring payment etc.

Under NIL someone outside with little or no controls is handing over money.

If they were employees there would be an entirely different set of rules around outside employment, conflicts of interest, etc.

As an employee there would probably be limits or controls on what they could accept as gratuity for performing their University Work.

Frankly employment is both the solution to the current problem AND an end to college sports as we currently know it. It is pulling the final bandage off the wound.

If an employee of the University, couldn’t contracts be put in place (as with Coaches) the make it harder to switch teams?

likely the end game is a collectively bargained solution between the players and the NCAA that all NCAA colleges are beholden to. It will likely involve contracts that players have to sign and likely will include provisions for transferring and provisions for cutting players.

Likely the end game is that big-time college football is restricted to 30-40 schools, which is exactly what the networks want, and everybody else just drops organized competitive sports altogether. Think about it, why would an educational institution all of a sudden be beholden to sports in general and add a thousand more “employees” that really add nothing to its bottom line and are a constant drain to its resources? This in addition to providing them free education, room and board, training facilities, counseling, tutoring, etc…Why would an educational institution take in hundreds of “employees” who, in a lot of cases, wouldn’t qualify academically if it wasn’t for their sporting prowess? The vast majority of schools don’t turn anything close to a profit with sports and now they’re going to be asked to pay these people? It will never happen in a million years.

In a way, I feel bad for future athletes once these changes actually take hold. A lot of people that would never even sniff a college campus were they not athletes are going to find themselves in a perilous situation. Think about how sports have provided an access to upward mobility for millions of people, of which a significant number are minorities. That will all be gone once schools that have sports are forced to treat athletes as employees and they opt out of the new system. Truly a case of killing the goose that lays golden eggs.