NIL talk ***former Darian Mensah NIL deal thread***

GrandAdmiral said
I'm going to modify the title of this thread to be more general talk on NIL, especially now that Congress seems ready to move on things.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/43348934/house-settlement-ncaa-sec-big-ten-nil

From the article:

Several industry sources said they expect the biggest SEC and Big Ten schools, such as Alabama, Texas, Ohio State and Michigan, to demand a bigger proportion of their conferences' television earnings when new broadcast deals are negotiated in the early 2030s -- a move that would drive another wedge between the haves and have-nots.

I'm a libertarian (honestly, an anarchist at heart), but that right there is why someone has to step in legally and stop this insanity. Texas destroyed the SWC through their greed, then destroyed the Big 12 when their greed enticed them to create the Longhorn Network that didn't share any of the profits with the conference. I know the above is speculation by experts, but it would come as no surprise that they didn't learn anything from that and tried again to screw over the SEC by demanding an unequal portion of profits.

"Nobody wants to see a handful of super schools with unlimited cash, all the best athletes and nobody else even able to survive," Cruz said.
The Big Ten and SEC each raked in more than $850 million in their most recent fiscal year, leaving even their power conference peers in the ACC ($706 million) and Big 12 ($511 million) significantly behind.

Well, not nobody, because certain schools and many of their alumni want exactly that. I'm fine with the conferences raking in what money they can (though they ought to be using it for the general welfare of each university rather than hoarding all of it for the sports programs), but the "highest bidder" portal garbage needs to stop.

Personally, I think the University shouldn't have any say in the NIL deals. Recruiting should be done strictly on the basis of the school's program and NIL money can only be offered to athletes by outside companies once they are signed and in house to any particular University. Further, any school making a deal with an athlete with the guarantee of NIL money to get him to sign into their program should be considered tampering and the school punished severely. That would be a fair way to run this insanity.
Highly talented athletes will still gravitate to the schools with more money because they'll have a better chance of landing a lucrative NIL deal from wealthy companies loyal to those schools, but the schools won't be able to steal athletes from other schools by being able to offer them already in place deals worth millions just to come into their building.

Just my $.02