The House v. NCAA ruling that allowed college athletic departments to share up to $20.5 million in revenue with their athletes has caused a lot of controversy in recent days.
It’ll be quite some time before we know just how much this will change college athletics, but Fox Sports analyst RJ Young says that it’s already having unintended consequences.
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Out of the $20.5 million that athletic departments are reportedly able to share with their athletes, about 75% of that will be going to college football.
With programs being capped at just north of $15 million to spend on college football players, Young believes that boosters will now use their money to give high school players signing bonuses before they even get on campus.
On his podcast “Adapt and Respond,” Young said, “It’s the easiest way to get around revenue sharing. If you want to pay a player and ensure that he’s going to come to your university come hell or high water, at least for one year, you pay him outside the coffers that are your revenue sharing before you even get your name image or likeness collective that might be associated with the university, isn’t going to stop any business or millionaire from wanting to give a player $250,000 or even $2 million to come play for them.”
One of the major changes to the NIL landscape from the House v. NCAA ruling was the fact that all NIL deals made by boosters and businesses would have to go through the NCAA’s clearing house function, which means it’s going to be harder to get those deals done.
As Young points out, that money will now go towards giving high school athletes money before they become college athletes.
Signing bonuses have been around since NIL started, with a recent example being Nico Iamaleava getting nearly $500,000 for signing with Tennessee back in 2023, but as Young explains, this is going to become more and more common.
It’s a dangerous precedent to set, as this means that before a football player has even proven anything, they will be receiving six-figure payments, which could cause a lot of problems down the line.
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It will be interesting to see if Young is right and the world of NIL continues to develop under the new House v. NCAA ruling.
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