It's a sad state of affairs. The line between student-athlete and professional keeps getting blurred, and it makes it difficult for me to want to support NCAA sports teams (well, ones that would be affected by NIL anyway) .

I already shred any letters UCD Athletics sends me asking for money because I don't support NIL payments, FBS aspirations, or any of the student-athlete-only programs. It's not making a difference, but not contributing to causes I don't agree with makes a difference to me. Everyone else can just continue to do what they've been doing.

If people were actually that concerned about the state of the NCAA they could vote with their wallets in a similar fashion, but they won't. The lure of nationally-televised football and basketball is too great.

What a mess...

So basically a variation of trolley question on morality. In this case the bus is going to crazy town. Which is worse? Getting in or getting hit?

The key is to avoid trying to fix yesterday’s problem when you’re in a dynamic landscape. We don’t know exactly how this shakes out but as with prior iterations of realignment, the programs that focus on the main things are best positioned to deal with change.

If the schools start paying the athletes directly, then they are both student and employee. How do you fire an employee when they start flunking their classes. If the professors didn't already have enough pressure to pass these kids, they will have even more pressure now. With the non-geographic league re-alignment going on, there will be even more travel for these kids making their education more of an afterthought. I like watching Davis sports and I like to see us win, but I was always proud when we were a DII school and in a non-scholarship league but still had one of the best football teams in the country at that level. I always felt that is where "Aggie Pride" came from.

Is this gonna be like the NBA, where everything has seemingly gone too far, and public buy in has dropped 30%?

Inevitably. Players moving around for big NIL money will destroy fan enthusiasm. For each team that benefits, another’s fans are disappointed. The enthusiasm will be concentrated on a few teams, the disillusionment more widely distributed.

Listening to a lot of the talking heads on the NIL subject, it's a bit like the wild west out there, NIL has no formal rules or structural apparatus to operate from...and now agents/players are pushing through the preconceptions with bold moves to maybe help form the inevitable framework for this whole NIL deal.

So many problems. I will just add my two cents on two that I think are important First the elite programs are going to build up walls and barriers to ensure that they stay on top and keep out others. They will not be likely to offer and support the possibility of competitive parity.

The second is the number of athletes in Division I that will have meaningful experiences and personal growth is going to plummet. I am truly sorry for future NCAA athletes.

This is extreme, but,...at the present trajectory, and with no guardrails.....it feels like we are headed for a completely different college sports landscape within the next 5-10 years (?) *corrected per DrMike*:

DI - "Power 4" ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC (professional 'collegiate' athletes)
DII - Everyone else (scholarship / non-scholarship athletes)
DIII - Everyone who was DII

This would be near-destruction of traditional college athletics for the sake of the 4-conference-revenue-machine....unless someone steps in and does something

I think your ‘30 years’ is off an order of magnitude.

10 years?
Also, I admit I didn't read the article (shame!)

I think they will to fo something radical in the next 5-6, focused around a football super conference. Maybe all other sports go back to manageable geographical conference.

Feels like this house agreement (pay up to $23M to athletes, and the big jump in overall scholarships) is one big step to separating the D1 schools.

I guess it’s a good time to be a sports lawyer - seems like nothing is off limits when suing the NCAA!

I like the more manageable geographical conference idea for the rest of us....And imagine what this could look like in 30 years.....

And teams's net worth has skyrocketed?

A possible upside to the House agreement is that, with a somewhat standardized (although how schools chose to pay is arbitrary) and some limits in outside NIL (we’ll see if that happens), there may be a big decrease in transfer portal.

This is exactly the Super Conference that the media are lurking to bid on, isn't it? There's this new streaming venture out there in the wings with ESPN/Disney/??? that wants those rights. After that we've just shoved all the rest down into what is now the FCS scrambling for some $$$ and TV time.

It's all insane. Football has totally distorted college athletics so much it's not recognizable any more. The smaller sports, the Olympic sports, are left in the dust