The Portal Mostly Giveth, and the Portal Sometimes Taketh Away

In the fall of 2018, the NCAA instituted a new policy that would change the landscape of collegiate athletics forever. The mystical transfer portal was first opened. Players would now be allowed to enter the portal and find a new school to play at with immediate eligibility. Previously, athletes would have to sit out a year after transferring and risk losing their spot at the new school and miss out on valuable development time as a result. However, it has not been all sunshine and rainbows.

As the saying goes, the portal giveth and the portal taketh away. Fans of college athletics have had polarizing reactions to this new age of player movement, resulting in a dichotomy of opinion among the most rabid fans. One half loves the freedom afforded to players and the ability it gives them to improve their situations. The other half is unhappy and does not like the idea that their best players can choose to change teams on a whim. This split was only widened in the summer of 2021, when the NCAA began to allow athletes to use the name, image and likeness (NIL) to form brand partnerships and make money from their talents. NIL has turned the transfer portal into the wild west, with big time boosters offering star players millions of dollars per year to join the booster’s preferred school. In rare cases, players will even transfer to a new school for nearly every year of their career in order to maximize NIL earnings. The second group of fans from above point to this mercenary type bag chasing as a reason to close the portal and rein in NIL by imposing caps on the amount of money players can make on their marketing deals. However, this is not the answer. Someone that I reached out to that works for a college athletic department noted than NIL has actually led to an uptick in graduation rate, as athletes do not see the need to go pro as early since they can make money while still in college. This is just one example of how NIL can be a positive force for good.

I am very much in the first group mentioned above, in favor of the portal and NIL, and to be honest I want to challenge the second group. In a perfect world, every recruit picks the right school for them straight out of high school and stays all four years while earning their degree. However, this rarely actually happens. We need to deal with reality and how the world of college sports really works. College athletes are human, and in this conversation most importantly, students. Students are allowed freedom of movement. If an Auburn student wants to transfer to Ole Miss and is accepted to the school, there is no barrier to that. Additionally, if that student wants to work a job at Wendy’s when not on campus, no one can say no to that employment or limit their earnings. Who are we to say athletes are not allowed the same rights? The only way to tie these athletes to a school in an athletics sense and impose a salary cap is to make them employees and have them sign enforceable multi year contracts. 

Another source that works in the college athletics industry that I reached out to for their take on the situation noted that this outcome seems the most likely route for the future of college athletics. I am all for that, but if you want these athletes to become employees, you have to also recognize the externalities that will arise from this system. By making them employees, the athletes are free to unionize and collectively bargain much like we see in minor and major professional sports leagues in the United States. Additionally, paying these athletes from the schools themselves instead of from the deep pockets of boosters results in the schools suddenly having a new multi million dollar expense on their books. This system is extremely short sighted. Non revenue sports (anything other than basketball and football) will be cut by the dozens across the NCAA in order to save money, and Division II and III schools may have to drop their athletics programs entirely. A great majority of college athletes have no chance or desire to go pro, and play simply for the love of the game. By turning student athletes into employees, we risk disadvantaging tens of thousands of non revenue sport playing student athletes by ending their careers due to colleges instituting budget cuts so they can pay out to revenue sport players in an effort to stay competitive in those sports. A Division III athlete that I reached out to for comment opposes the classification of student athletes as employees for exactly this reason. They posited that they think at some point, it makes more sense for Division I basketball and football to simply break away as their own fully professional minor leagues, with branding as the only potential tie remaining to the academic institutions with which they used to be fully integrated. I agree with this sentiment. Making student athletes into employees reduces the total amount of good that college athletics can do, by raising quality of life for the few at the expense of the many.

At the end of the day, we have to be real about what we are cheering for when it comes to college athletics. The laundry they wear will almost always come before the players themselves. They know this, and deep down so do we. As much as we wax poetic about loyalty in sports, it can actively hurt the career of a player in the wrong situation for them. The worst type of fans may have a bad reaction to a transfer initially, but will forget quickly and go back to cheering for the same colors and logo that they always have. In my never perfect opinion, the best way forward is actually the status quo. Give athletes the freedom of movement in the portal afforded to other non athlete students, but also allow them to profit as much as they can from their NIL deals that they gain outside of school, just like non athlete students can. Because that is what they are, students. The free market will continue to reign supreme, and if these student athletes truly do not deserve the money that they are making from NIL, then we will see deals start to decline in value. And no matter how you frame it, grown men getting angry at teenagers for not wanting to attend their favorite school is strange behavior. Let the kids play, let them enjoy the fruits of their labor, and never tweet at ‘croots.