For decades, College Football has entertained millions of fans across the country on Saturdays in the fall. Fans ranging from diehards to casuals tune in to watch their favorite school compete for four hours every week. Every week seems to deliver another great chapter of iconic endings and school pride. Some call it the best sport ever created, but a growing population say it’s being ruined by the free market of Name Image Likeness (NIL) deals, which allow a player to make money off the use of his Name, Image, and Likeness.
As long as College Football has existed, there has been growing controversy concerning paying the players. Should they be getting paid? It’s well known that several programs paid players illegally under the table before it became legal to pay them. In 1987, SMU was caught paying players through a slush fund that coaches, boosters, and high-level school administrators were aware of. The paying of players had given SMU a significant recruiting bump, to the point where in the 1980’s they had become a dominant force in College Football. The scandal was uncovered when one of their Linebackers David Stanley, revealed that he had received payment up to $25,000. At the time, SMU was already facing sanctions for previous infractions, but administrators ordered that the payments continue. They were caught trying to cover it up and, as a result, lost the right to field a team as punishment. The program was reinstated in 1989.
But many were never caught or never punished, and got a massive recruiting advantage as a result. That was resolved in 2021 when all players were allowed to be paid for their Name, Image, and Likeness, and further resolved in 2025 when they were allowed to be paid by the schools themselves. The money coming from the schools, known as revenue-sharing money, has a salary cap of about $20 million for all athletes at the school combined.
This caused the controversy to shift from whether the players should get paid to whether the pendulum has swung too far. Almost everyone agrees these days that they should be paid. Now the question is whether there should be a salary cap or some kind of restrictions on NIL used for each college team. In its current state, there are almost no guardrails on the NIL money, and many say that it is unsustainable and is ruining College Football.
One of the reasons for that argument is the recent uptick in players transferring during the offseason to other teams. Some players transfer every year, and a few even transfer multiple times throughout the offseason. In the 2026 transfer cycle, roughly 10,500 players transferred schools across all divisions, causing many fans to lament the lack of loyalty to schools.
While loyalty has taken a back seat in College Football, this may actually be a good thing. The number of players in the portal shows a spreading out of talent. There are several reasons why a player may transfer from a school, and money certainly is one of them. However, playing time, team culture, coaching changes, or player development are also major reasons. It’s hard to say that NIL deals don’t play a factor, but they also aren’t the only factor in that number. Players who were very talented out of high school but aren’t getting playing time now have the opportunity to go find a team where they will play.
Further, if a player is playing well, he should have the right to see what his market value is in the portal. This is where fans can impact the game. Now more than ever, fans have the opportunity to impact the ability of their school to get a good team by donating to NIL funds. All of this has made it harder for one team to get all of the best players and allowed more teams to be competitive at a national level.
The Indiana Hoosiers are as good an example of this as any. For decades, Indiana has sat at the bottom of College Football. In fact, at the start of the 2025 season, they had the record for the most losses in history at 715, a record that Northwestern surpassed by the end of the season. But because of NIL deals, they were able to build a team that went 16-0 and won a National Championship for the first time in their history. Before the NIL era, there was almost no chance that the talent in College Football would spread out and that some of the best players would choose to go to Indiana.
This, however, does not come without its drawbacks. Another major argument against the free market of NIL is that the teams with all the money will be the only teams able to compete for Championships. This argument does have merit. The reality is that the gap between Power 4 and Group of 6 teams will widen. But Group of 6 teams haven’t been competitive at a national level in decades. In fact, the last time that a non-power team won a National Championship was 46 years ago, when BYU did it in 1984.
The best players are likely going to choose the teams that will pay them well. But just because a team has money and talent doesn’t mean they’ll be the best team. Of the teams that were in the top 15 of NIL budgets this past season, only 6 made the 12-team playoff. That means that 50% of the teams that competed in the College Football Playoff were not among the big spenders. It seems that in an era where talent spreads around, it’s equally as important or more to find players that fit the system you play as it is to have great players to play in your system.
Another issue with the arguments for a cap on NIL deals is that it would bring us right back to where we were before. Let’s say, for example, that we set the cap at 25 million dollars per school. In that scenario, it is very likely that those same schools that paid players illegally before would pay players under the table again and go above the salary cap. That would result in those schools dominating the sport for the foreseeable future because talent would no longer spread around. College football is so much more fun when anyone can compete. Indiana going from worst to first exemplifies the evening of the playing field.
Further, it is almost impossible to enforce guardrails on NIL deals. The NCAA has tried. The College Sports Commission, or CSC, was established to regulate and enforce rules surrounding NIL deals. It was intended that any deal an athlete was given should represent “fair market value” instead of “pay for play.” In other words, the deal would have to involve the player doing something with their actual Name, Image, or Likeness instead of receiving a check from a donor to play for the donor’s favorite school. Any deal exceeding $600 would be reviewed by the commission.
While this was a good idea in theory, it proved to be too much to handle. There were several instances of players who reported that they weren’t able to get deals approved because the CSC took so long in the reviewing process. As a result, the CSC almost faded into the background, and it seems as though it has gone back to business as normal, as though the CSC doesn’t exist in the first place. Trying to regulate donors can also open the NCAA up to lawsuits. How is the NCAA or any governing body supposed to tell an independent person who they are allowed to pay?
In addition, it seems a little early to decide that something is broken. It has only been about five years since NIL came into existence for college athletes. Most eras in College Football, like the BCS or four-team College Football Playoff eras, were given a decade plus before changes were made. That’s because there needs to be several data points before major decisions are made. There are still so many things that can happen that could change the direction of College Football. For example, donors getting tired of paying millions for players could cause a market correction over time in how much players are paid. There are still so many unknowns that need time to play out.
Overall, the big idea is this: NIL is not ruining college football; it is repairing it. Teams that have been cheating the system for years by paying players under the table no longer have an unfair advantage because everyone can pay for players. For perhaps the first time in the modern era, it really is anyone’s game. Any fanbase can rally to impact their team and make it competitive. Saturdays in College Football are as iconic as ever because any given Saturday, upsets and wild finishes still happen. If you are on the fence, then know this: the argument isn’t necessarily saying that things don’t need changes in the future, but at the very least, the current state of NIL should get more time and data points before deciding that it needs a change.
