barsad said:
Yes, I think there will be legal challenges to NIL, but those challenges will not be about "overturning" NIL. More likely the lawsuits will seek to better define what forms acceptable student compensation will take in the future.
Personally I am hoping that the challenges focus on how far governing bodies can go in regulating payments to students. Right now there is zero acceptable regulation, it's the Wild West and the roster chaos we saw in the last few months is a result. The first thing the courts will have to acknowledge is that this "name, image and likeness" thing is just another name for "compensation for play", it was a convenient way to get around being uncomfortable with paying students for the work they do (playing basketball).
Pro teams, along with three pro players' unions, all agree that a salary cap is needed for a common good: competitive balance within a league. The same anti-competitive problem exists right now in the NCAA under the no-regulation NIL regime. So I see no reason that the same legal argument wouldn't work for D1 teams, who all face the same problem (i.e. only a few NIL-fundraising powerhouses will take all of the good players and crush the competition every year).
There are a lot of differences between pro sports and college…. no players' union (yet) to make a deal with, a bunch of college presidents and NCAA executives who can't agree on what to order for lunch let alone hammer out an important labor agreement.
But with some leadership, creativity, good lawyers, backroom deals and/or a lot of time in court, reform can and should happen. But expect a 10-year process (or longer). I'm not looking forward to the next 10 years of roster musical chairs every off-season!
Right now NIL is mostly paid by boosters outside the school's budget as they used to under the table. A huge area for growth is players signing with agents and receiving "pre-payments" or loans based on speculation over their future NFL value. Cal can compete in this world. We have a large, wealthy alumni base. However, inevitably it will be pay to play outright and inevitably it will be players being paid from the school's media and ticket revenues. Both the law and competition will drive us there. (Cal will have trouble competing in that world as our media revenues are dwarfed by the rest of the P4)
I don't see it being remotely possible to have collective bargaining between hundreds of schools in one employer group and a single union that represents tens of thousands of players and prospective players, including many under the age of 18, who only have 4 years of eligibility before leaving the union. Moreover, many P4 schools are in "right to work states" that make union organizing virtually impossible. If you are the top player in the country you simply don't join the union, or quit the union, and if you are Alabama you don't abide by any salary cap. Any attempt by schools, conferences or the NCAA to implement a salary cap without collective bargaining will be struck down as illegal..
Thus, the only way I see to avoid "the Wild West" (unfettered, unregulated, free market competition) would be an act of Congress signed by the president, the easiest of which would be to give the NCAA antitrust immunity and the ability to regulate the market and institute salary caps.
However, I don't see Congress reinstituting "amateurism." As much as many older fans pine for a return to that era , it was based on a fundamental injustice and inequity, with schools making nearly $100 million in revenues while players essentially "got to go to class." Something that used to be nearly free at Cal and still is on other places in the world. On the other hand, who knows which way America's political winds will blow? There is a political movement that pines for the America of the 1950s so maybe a return to the days when athletes where unpaid will be taken up by them? The Supreme Court, however, seems to be very libertarian (on this issue at least, the opposite on others).
