Rich university athletic programs have always used their superior financial situations to get a leg up on their competition.  They bought the best coaches and built dazzling athletic facilities to lure the best players. Now with the current state of NIL and the portal they can also buy the best athletes.  

Let’s get something straight up front.  What is happening now does not conform to the original intention of the NIL concept which was meant to allow college athletes to benefit from their Name, Image, and Likeness.  On the surface that seems to be fair.  However, it has now degenerated into play for pay and bidding wars for the best players which is destroying the competitive model. 

When we think of the NFL and the NBA we have images of athletes being paid enormous salaries, and that perception is obviously correct.  However, those top professional leagues understand that their products will not be as marketable if only a few of the richest teams are allowed to continually dominate the completion.  For that reason they instituted player drafts and salary caps to level the playing fields.

There are no such mechanisms in college sports as it enters the pay for play and portal age.  The richest institutions will buy the best players with millions of dollars, competition be damned. There were already inequities in even the most prominate conferences.  For instance in SEC football during recent years teams like Alabama and Georgia were usually found near the top of conference final standings due to their winning traditions and because they bought two of the best coaches.  In the future it will be the schools with the richest boosters that will dominate their competition.

The portal leads to further inequities.  With athletes no longer having to sit out a year after transferring, the richest schools can lure away the best players with promises of big pay days. For instance, Yaxel Lendeborg, an outstanding basketball player at UAB, entered the portal and was quickly snatched up by Michigan.  Now we don’t know what Yaxel is going to be paid to switch teams for his last year in college, but his NIL worth has been calculated to be $2.3 million.

Yaxel’s case is a good example of what is happening in the age of the portal.  He was originally recruited after junior college and UAB was obviously his best offer. None of the teams in the Top 4 basketball conferences offered him a scholarship.  Coach Andy Kennedy developed Yax’s natural talent until he became one of the most dominate players in the American Athletics Conference.  Now one can’t fault Yaxel for moving to much green pastures, but is it fair for Coach Kennedy who recognized his talent when others didn’t and developed him?

This is the future of schools who don’t have the best NIL bankrolls, especially Division 1 teams not in the Top 4 conferences.  They have almost never been able to attract best recruits out of high school.  When they succeed it was because they are able to identify diamonds-in-the-rough among the high school and junior college recruits and develop them into very good players. Then they were rewarded for their talent identifying skills and their development efforts when those player performed at a high level during their junior and senior years.  No more!  Now as soon as a player shows signs of highly developed athletic skills he can enter the portal in search of a better payday. 

However, the combination of the portal and NIL effects will not be limited to the poaching of the best players from lower level conferences.  Now there is nothing to prevent programs with the biggest NIL funds like Texas, Michigan, and Ohio St. from stealing the best players from other Top 4 conference programs, and even from other schools in their own conferences.  Without the mechanisms that are used to level the playing fields in professional sports, true completion in college football and basketball is essentially doomed.  The perpetual winners will be those who can buy the best players.  

Cajun (Rick Guilbeau) 

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