College Football ’22 Year In Review: What the NIL is Going On?

(This article is part of our College Football ‘22 Year in Review series. For other articles, please click here.)

Everyone knew that the June 30, 2021 decision by the NCAA Division I Board to allow college athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness (NIL) would change the landscape of college sports, particularly football.

What we didn’t know was how it would change the landscape.

Gone are the days of taking under-the-table money from boosters, fans, and other program supporters. Now, when players get paid, it is legitimate.

It was an unspoken thing that players, especially the good ones, were getting financial benefits outside scholarships and stipends. You’d hear stories of players driving brand new cars, having rolls of money out of the blue, and other signs of securing wealth far greater than what your average “I’ve eaten pizza for four meals this week and ramen for breakfast” college student.

It became a joke and source of razzing between fans, and hand-wringing among purists. Who can forget the Ol’ Ball Coach Steve Spurrier’s famous “free shoes university” quip? Or the tales of Pony Excess? 

Now, it’s a whole new ball game. Pun intended.

In the limited sample we’ve seen, universities with wealthy boosters aren’t afraid to pony up the money to get the vaunted recruit. And companies are getting in on it, from Wrangler with Texas QB Quinn Ewers, to Gushers Snacks with Mohamed Ibrahim.

(NOTE: On3 Media and bestcolleges.com have two really cool articles each on NIL, and we’ve linked to them. We get no money for this, just game respecting game. And we’re not plagiarizing hacks. Carry on.)

And there are collectives popping up everywhere, too. In short, these collectives are essentially businesses that gather money to allocate to student-athletes. And you best believe that the power houses/blue blood programs have one. And if they don’t, they will.

We got a sample of what they looked like in ‘22, with players like DaColdest Crawford signing a GENIUS NIL deal to capitalize off his incredibly cool name.

It’s going to be interesting to see where NIL takes college sports—especially football over the next few years.

College athletes have been crafting brands over social media platforms for years. Now they have a chance to turn that into a revenue generator.

Will it become an arms race? Will there be some kind of oversight?

The NIL situation isn’t a bad thing by itself, but it does have the potential to change the landscape of an already great game.

Hopefully not for the worse.