Sudden Impact - NIL

You likely have heard of NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) by this time. How, when, where, why and under what circumstances Youth-to-NCAA athletes get paid is a mess. What is obvious though is that the rules and trends are shaping sports in new ways.

If you want a history of how NIL came about, read this. And here you can find more information about this past summer’s settlement between athletes and the NCAA.

And as of last week, if you want to rat out a sus NIL deal you can report now report it to the College Sports Commission. 🤔

Change often has unintended consequences and we are going to use ESPN’s recently pre-season projected starting lineups for the 2025-26 NCAA Men’s Basketball Top 25 as a lens to see the shifting landscape.

NCAA athletes have always had an option to transfer schools but with restrictions. In 2018, they coined the term “portal” and added some new rules. In the last few years, the transfer process was stripped of nearly all restrictions resulting in a robust secondary market for athletes.

For some sports this portal has upended (even more so than actual NIL money) nearly all aspects of recruiting, team construction, coaching, and administration. Early evidence popped up in 2022 when Duke Basketball hired Rachel Baker to act as GM — a reflection of the increasing complexity to field competitive teams.

As you can see from the data on this season’s NCAA Men’s hoops, a staggering 40% of the best players will be new transfers. And 56% of starters will be brand new to their school!

We are many years from the era of team/city/player loyalty. It is exceedingly rare to find a Clayton Kershaw or Buster Posey who play their entire careers with a single team. Pro franchises move cities with some regularity. Universities are no longer loyal to conferences — when Stanford jumped to the ACC, multiple east coast trips suddenly became “normal” for regular season play. Now we’re seeing “one and done” turn into an array of things that make you go hmm. Some examples:

Point guard Xaivian Lee transferred from Princeton to Florida foregoing his Princeton degree for a chance to start for the defending champions.

Lee’s teammate Caden Pierce is going to get his degree but not play his senior year to have an extra year of eligibility so that he can transfer (and ostensibly get paid) to play as a graduate student stretching the concept of “redshirting” beyond recognition.

And one more plot twist, also from the Princeton Class of 2026, women’s soccer player Pietra Tordin opted out all the way and left the gothic courtyards for the pitch signing with the Portland Thorns FC of the NWSL.

Some of what makes it so very hard to repeat as champions in pro sports is turnover. Modern NFL unrestricted free agency came about in 1993 but includes a salary cap. Today, the average NFL squad actually has some 15-20% of starters who are new via free agency each year. This requires a lot of knowledge transfer and chemistry that has to be built anew each season.

Baseball free agency dates back to 1976 and comes in at a modest 7% despite the massive contracts that grab headlines each off season.

At 40% NCAA Basketball is now in another stratosphere and all signs point to the unpredictable and possibly unsustainable. If we look at the composition of the Top 25 starters, it is striking to notice that incoming freshman make up only 12% (all are top 100 ranked) which seems like programs now placing a premium on college playing experience (albeit coming from a different program). We may start to see a dynamic where talented athletes opt for smaller schools or less marquee programs with the objective of playing time and brand building so that they can then transfer to a larger one at premium NIL dollars. Almost like a minor and major league NCAA.

With the news that the Big Ten is closing in on a $2B equity deal, all foundational aspects of NCAA sports could come under pressure in the form of lawsuits and gambits of all sorts. Could the Big Ten just break away? Will high school media and athlete rights become high value bargaining chips? Who will be the first major NFL/NBA top draft prospect to stay in “college” with a deal on par with turning pro?

And how aggressively will change come to high schools in the next few years? Nike named their 2025 NIL class as they flirt with paying high school athletes. Earlier this year high school powerhouse Mater Dei (CA) signed a 10-year media rights deal with Playfly Sports.

Setting a reminder for March on the eve of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, to revisit these projected rosters!

How many teams are still in the Top 25?

How many players will still be starting and what will the composition of transfers look like?

Until next time.