I agree with you, but to be completely honest, the NCAA needs to have super strict rules regarding NIL. It was never intended to be what it is today. It was never intended to “buy” players.
Sure it was. The bags under the table are now legal and on the table. Players are now paid their market value for their football talents, for which before NIL they were chattel, enriching the university only for which they generated an s-ton of revenue. Not to mention risking their physical future and livelihood.(Some will bring up the free ride in school as adequate compensation, but that's not fooling anyone anymore.)
The NCAA and the courts are close to implementing Revenue Sharing, where universities' athletic departments can allocate up to 22% of their revenues to pay athletes, capped at $20.5M per school. That ceiling will rise incrementally over the next 4 years.
The revenue sharing formula for college sports in 2025 is expected to be based on a 75-15-5-5 formula. This formula allocates 75% of the revenue to football, 15% to men's basketball, and 5% each to women's basketball and other sports.
The formula is based on a settlement between the NCAA and power conferences in response to antitrust lawsuits. The revenue sharing will begin in the 2025-2026 academic year.
Now, what the NCAA does not have jurisdiction over are the community and corporate collectives that operate outside of the schools. An example is Quinn Ewers in a Dr. Pepper commercial. Only Congress can regulate those.
Where is the sport headed? Going to be hard to rein NIL in. If anything, players will push to get 50-50 rev share from schools, not 22-78 share.
I would not be shocked if the trajectories one day lead to an SEC-Big Ten "pro" league, and/or, that college football business is totally severed from the universities, who will just license their name and likeness to their proxy team. The old world is over. The era of student-athletes first has been swept away by the roaring roll of capitalism.
Here's a decent AP article from May on the rapidly evolving landscape.