NIL is Ruining Everything. What Time is Kickoff?
By Les Morris
Jan. 16th, 2023 - I was having a conversation in an indoor pool an hour before the CFP championship game between Michigan and Washington with two of my good buddies at our aqua boxing class. Yes, I’m in that age category!
Bill was in front of me, trying to warm up after walking into the chilly water. He turned to me and said he heard the going NIL rate for a starting quarterback was six or seven million dollars. He asked me if that was true. I cited Nebraska coach Matt Rhule’s end-of-the-season comment that good quarterbacks cost $1.5 to $2 million but some indeed are earning $6 to $7 million through NIL to play college ball.
Scott, warming up with leg exercises to my left, disdainfully shook his head. A moment later, he was talking about making it home in time for kickoff and admitted he debated about coming to class at all because he didn’t want to be rushed before the game.
Therein lies the dichotomy of the current college athletics landscape and the fan of a certain age. To me, it’s akin to what some voters say when asked about the economy – I’m doing fine but the general economy is lousy.
NIL, the transfer portal, conference realignments that make no geographical sense are all bemoaned as ruining the joy of intercollegiate athletics.
Really?
It turned out the ratings for Michigan’s 34-13 championship win show an audience of over 25 million viewers, the largest viewership in four years and a healthy 45% increase from last season’s numbers. ESPN said the three-game CFP playoffs were the most-watched since 2018.
The site On3.com publishes attendance figures during the football season and a back-of-the-envelope count had 95 of the 133 Division I FBS schools reporting attendance gains year-over-year in 2023. Of those 95, 50 reported gains of over 5%.
I’ve long felt that NIL has played a small part in this increase. NIL has opened sports sponsorship opportunities to small, local brands who never could have afforded the hefty price tag of working with professional athletes.
The auto dealer in the college town now can pay the school’s student-athletes to promote their vehicles on social media posts. That same dealer can have the college star come to the new car showroom on a Saturday morning and sign autographs as part of the NIL relationship.
Now, the people who work for the companies that sponsor those athletes and the fans who receive the autographs and read the social media posts, are much more likely to attend and more importantly, watch the games.
So, despite all the head shaking and frantic calls to sports talk shows that NIL, the transfer portal, and conference realignment are all killing college sports, we go to the stadiums, arenas, sports bars, and sit in front of our own screens more than ever.
Don’t forget too the unprecedented growth in interest for women’s sports and so-called “Olympic” sports.
I get it. We’re talking about sports where the heart and the head are frequently in conflict. I’m as guilty as anyone.
Take the upcoming 12-school NCAA football playoffs. I think it’s a bad idea. I’m a dinosaur who would like to stick with the current system of four schools.
We’re concerned with player safety? OK, then let’s have these teams play as many as 17 games, or an NFL schedule, to determine a champion.
Want to maintain a shred of fealty to the academic institution and the term “student-athlete”? OK, let’s have players, managers, the kids who work and intern in the athletic department, give up a chunk of December when finals take place.
It's all too much and today’s system works. Will I be watching next season? Of course. I’ll be rushing home from my aqua boxing class to make the kickoff.
