Are prep athletes prepared to negotiate with colleges?
With each passing day I grow more uncertain about the future for our top high school athletes, especially in football and basketball.
That uncertainty ran deeper as I watched news conferences for Ohio State and Notre Dame players during the run-up to Monday’s College Football Playoff championship game.
A common question to players was, what’s been your favorite purchase with name, image and likeness (NIL) money? Fighting Irish running back Jeremiyah Love replied that he bought a Porsche for his mother.
How times have changed.
First of all, good for Love and the opportunities open to him by payments now allowed to college athletes. In an instant, it seems, a generation of young men and women finally gained access to the billions of dollars floating around NCAA sports.
Meanwhile, the changing landscape continues to affect our high school athletes. Not necessarily in a negative way, but it’s created an extra slab of decision making atop a brain-cramping recruiting world.
It’s already difficult for student-athletes to choose a college based on competitive and academic priorities. With NIL money now involved, is it becoming a simple matter of choosing the biggest stack of cash?
Many of our top prep athletes already have their feet dipped into NIL waters through various corporate sponsorships, whether it’s with trading card or sporting goods companies. But with each scholarship offer, the inevitable negotiation of direct payments from colleges muddles the process.
College athletics has become a gold mine for the top men and women. Quarterback Carson Beck could have moved on to the NFL after this season with Georgia, but instead he accepted a reported $4 million to land at the University of Miami through the transfer portal.
Because of moves like that, NIL money has created a logjam of talent at the college level. Why move on to an unknown future in the NFL, NBA or WNBA when there’s a flood of money available in college?
Why leave college if you’re UConn basketball player Paige Bueckers or LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne when right now might be your top earning moment? Beck might have been a first-round pick in April, but what if he wasn’t?
Highly touted Texas quarterback Arch Manning earned about $3 million each of the last two seasons despite barely playing. Not a bad deal.
Between redshirting, getting an extra year because of the pandemic, utilizing the transfer portal and gaining additional eligibility through new junior college regulations, athletes are able to stick around college longer than ever before.
While the NCAA is prepared to pay $1.2 billion in NIL money to former athletes, the colleges will be expected to spend an additional $1.6 billion. The budget crunch is hitting schools like Indiana University, which recently announced 25 layoffs in its athletic department.
The bill finally came due for the NCAA. And our area continues to send waves of prep athletes to the next level.
Hopefully they’re prepared to negotiate.