The concept of the transfer portal in college sports has always favoured athletes over schools. The introduction of NIL deals made it harder for smaller programs to compete with the bigger ones.
Talented players on smaller programs can decide to leave a program that has developed their abilities and join a bigger program that offers bigger financial compensation.
The NCAA transfer portal offers athletes greater freedom to pursue opportunities at other institutions, potentially improving their playing time, NIL earnings, and academic fit. However, it also creates instability for teams and challenges for coaches as players can leave at any time, and programs can do nothing to stop it.
Josh Pate Exposes Transfer Portal’s True Impact: How SEC and Big Ten Are Pulling Away
College football analyst Josh Pate has always been of the opinion that NIL has made the transfer portal worse and that talent won’t be evenly distributed because of power programs with deep budgets. On his YouTube show, he claims that the SEC and the Big Ten are the conferences that have benefited the most over other conferences.
“Players aren’t leaving the conference, and if they are, it’s because they probably weren’t a high-level player enough to crack the rotation for the major teams,” Pate said.
“Conversely, though, what absolutely is happening over and over and over again is that the players that are high-level players on non-SEC and Big Ten rosters are filtering up to those conferences. You saw that over and over again in the draft this past weekend.”
Pate further admitted that the situation is going to remain this way for a while and that he predicted that this is what would happen.
“Some of us said it won’t calibrate the sport like you think it’s going to; instead, the net result is that the rich get richer. There isn’t going to be a long-term change to the sport that isn’t going to see the same 15 or 20 programs and the same couple of conferences that have always dominated, find a way to dominate,” Pate said.
KEEP READING: 2025 College Football Transfer Portal Tracker
The transfer portal is supposed to provide competitive balance for programs and second chances for athletes. As much as the introduction of NIL has its own benefits, it also brings roster instability to programs, which creates an imbalance in competitiveness because programs with deeper pockets will always get the best talent available.
College Sports Network has you covered with the latest news, analysis, insights, and trending stories in college football, men’s college basketball, women’s college basketball, and college baseball!
