THE CHEAP SEATS with STEVE CAMERON: As Few saw coming, NIL is becoming a 'nightmare'

In 2019, Mark Few raised an alarm.

The Zags coach feared that intercollegiate sports was about to be flipped upside down, and that most people didn’t see the tsunami coming.

Background …

The California State Legislature had just passed a law allowing college athletes to earn money from their name, image and likeness (NIL).

“Look, I’m totally in favor of athletes sharing in the revenue that flows into major college sports,” Few said at the time.

“There are some excellent, well-planned ways we can do it — but getting politicians mixed up in the process will almost certainly cause chaos.

“For one thing, consider that there are 50 states. The California law will give schools in that state a huge recruiting advantage against everyone else — yes, it includes us, but that’s not my real concern.

“All those other states aren’t likely to sit back and let one state get a competitive leap on everyone else (mostly involving football and men’s basketball).

“We’re probably going to see a whole basket of new state laws, and somehow the NCAA will have to create fairness and regulation out of the whole thing.

“It’ll be a nightmare.”

Indeed.

Even Few may not have guessed how accurate his warning would become — nor how many political bodies, marketing companies and university policies would be thrown into this whirring blender.

Not to mention the United States Congress.

SO HERE we are, not too far down the road, and NIL is essentially considered rountine almost everywhere.

Or, more accurately, it is tolerated.

The NCAA would like to disband the current flood of money and set up a new system it considers fair and properly regulated.

However, the NCAA (to this point, at least) has chosen not to challenge schools, conferences and states — for fear of getting hit with an antitrust lawsuit, among other reasons.

So, pretty much every major collegiate program now has at least one “collective” — an organization of donors who dole out cash to athletes at the group’s school of choice.

There are even large companies whose “work” is to connect people awash in money with collectives supporting their programs of choice.

If you think that sounds like a little niche business, consider …

“The third year of the name, image, and likeness era could yield a market of up to $1.17 billion, according to a projection from NIL company Opendorse,” says a story in Front Office Sports.

“Opendorse has counted more than 200 collectives nationwide — 122 for Power 5 schools, 54 for Group of 5 and Big East schools, and 43 schools for the rest of Division I.

“Opendorse predicted that next year, a competitive NIL collective in the top tier of Power 5 schools will need to commit an average of $10 million to players, with ‘middle of the pack’ Power 5 collectives offering between $5 million to $10 million.

“The low end of Power 5 schools, as well as the upper end of Group of 5 schools, will need to offer $1 million-$5 million to be competitive.”

Those numbers are eye-openers, for sure, but it’s even more stunning to realize that all the zeros in checks passed out to athletes will increase dramatically in the next few years.

MEANWHILE, yes, there are plenty of groups and organizations (including the NCAA) who would like to see some control imposed on this “Wild West” version of college sports.

Even the all-powerful SEC, many of whose schools simply giggle at regulations, now can see that there needs to be some rules — along with punishment for breaking them.

There are now 30 states with a form of NIL laws, including some that prohibit conferences or the NCAA from interfering with any part of those laws.

The result, in a place like Texas (of course), you have schools like Texas A&M with a massive donor collective that is actually administered from WITHIN the university.

It’s no wonder that several conferences, the NCAA and various other organizations are lobbying for a federal law that would cover the entire landscape involving money-to-athletes in college sports.

“Our student-athletes deserve something better than a patchwork of state laws that support their NIL activity — if ‘support’ is the right word,” said SEC commissioner Greg Sankey.

“Our student-athletes deserve better than a race to the bottom at the state legislature level.”

THERE’S been a cautious, but determined, response to all this from the NCAA.

The University of Miami (Fla.) was handed what some would call light punishment for rule-breaking while “enticing” twin women’s basketball players Haley and Hanna Cavinder — social media stars who make more money as models than they will in sports — to transfer from Fresno State.

The NCAA handed out some light wrist-slapping, but it did include one year of probation.

That’s a cloud looming over schools that think they’re safe following state NIL laws while ignoring the NCAA.

The darkest sky would involve multi-year probation, because nothing is more painful to major programs than being excluded from those giant, revenue-producing postseason tournaments.

Also …

The NCAA does have one legal avenue if it wants to override state laws, according to Boise State University sports law professor Sam Ehrlich.

“The NCAA could try to get courts to strike down certain state NIL laws based on the argument that they unduly interfere with interstate commerce,” Ehrlich said.

WHILE ALL this wrangling is going on, the California legislature seems prepared to create ANOTHER earthquake.

The state assembly barely passed a resolution that would force universities to pay athletes a portion of revenue generated from their sport.

In other words, a whole new fight.

This one looks likely to fail in the state senate, so the next brouhaha might be prevented for now.

But still …

Whew!

Email: [email protected]

Steve Cameron’s “Cheap Seats” columns appear in The Press four times each week, normally Tuesday through Friday unless, you know, stuff happens.

Steve suggests you take his opinions in the spirit of a Jimmy Buffett song: “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On.”