NEW ORLEANS, LA – JANUARY 01: Texas Longhorns linebacker Anthony Hill Jr. (0) during the CFP Semifinal Allstate Sugar Bowl game between the Texas Longhorns and the Washington Huskies on January 01, 2024, at the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by John Korduner/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) for college football players was always a bad solution in search of a problem. Hopefully Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) recognize this truth before foisting another national solution on college football.
Exactly because college football is such a lucrative industry, how dangerous for the Senators to enter what’s prosperous with a one-size-fits-all fix crafted by the most disdained legislative body in America. Alas, we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
Looking back to the pre-NIL era, players were obviously paid. Which is an observation as illuminating as one about gambling taking place in casinos.
Where there’s talent there’s always money, and lots of it. With some of the world’s greatest athletes playing on Saturdays for schools formerly attended by so many wildly rich alums, money finding players was implied. That well-compensated coaches came as part of the talent package was another blinding glimpse of the obvious. Talent requires the best instruction, and realistically the best of everything.
Which is a reminder that in the pre-NIL era, athletes were in no way exploited. Not only was there money everywhere, but their scholarships came with an agreement that spanned a lifetime to complete their degree, facilities that in most instances put those of the NFL to shame, and a rolodex their fellow collegians would have given anything for.
What prevailed pre-NIL was player friendly precisely because it was fan friendly. Get it? The passion of the fans is what brought so much money to the sport. By extension, the copious amount of money that flowed to college football is what made a player’s time on campus plush, but that also kept players in good standing economically long after their collegiate (and NFL, if fortunate) playing days ended. They could literally dine out on what they did in college for life. It kept them gainfully employed too.
As in, it was long a known quantity in Columbus, OH that former Buckeyes were employed throughout. What was true in Columbus was also true in Austin, Knoxville, Norman, Tuscaloosa, or name team/town.
Fast forward to the present, a 2016 federal ruling brought on the present “Wild West” system of college football that Cruz and Cantwell want to tame. Since it’s difficult to find a college football fan who prefers the mercenary qualities of the sport in the NIL era, the Senators see an opportunity to fix these problems through nationalized television rights, stricter rules on player movement and eligibility, and the “saving” of non-revenue sports.
Cruz and Cantwell would be wise to step back. Cruz knows why. Not only did a federal ruling rooted in a false, “exploitation” narrative set in motion college football’s seeming decline, it would be folly to assume that federal lawmaking from the Commanding Heights of the U.S. Senate would fix the problems already created. Really, what could go wrong with a national solution?
Better for Cantwell and Cruz to recognize that for all of college football’s present-day demerits, it remains a lucrative, multi-billion-dollar business. The previous truth speaks to the incentives that already exist for the powers-that-be in the industry to fix it. And they will, or at least they’ll try to.
What shouldn’t happen is for the federal government to arrogate to itself nationalization powers over what fans are so passionate about. Cantwell and Cruz intuitively know this considering the fan bases in their respective states, Cruz in particular. Really, how embarrassing for Cruz if his speculated run for president in 2028 falters based on a 2026 attempt to nationalize an industry that Texans consider their own.