Written by Brooke Williams
Should college athletes be paid? This question stems from the stream of class-action lawsuits since the early 2000s urging for college athletes to, in fact, be paid. While many sports fans and athletes alike thought that collegiate athletes should be paid for their work, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) did not believe so and put restrictions that prohibited college athletes from profiting off of their Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). NIL refers to an athlete’s ability to profit off of the commercial use of their own name, image, and likeness and the prohibition of this remained the case until July 1, 2021 when the NCAA approved a policy to permit NIL deals for college athletes and changed the landscape of college athletics forever. Whether the change was positive or not is still up for debate but one thing all athletes, sports fans, analysts, and the NCAA agree on is that it created “a massive shock to the market of NCAA athletics” (Cherullo, 2023). While allowing college athletes to be paid at last has benefited the athletes themselves, it seems that NIL might have some negative effects on college sports as a whole. The benefits of NIL, however, outweigh its costs and thus should continue to exist and be a prominent component in collegiate athletics.
Before the legalization of NIL, athletes’ primary benefits were the athletic scholarships they received. However, researchers investigated what proportion of a school or team’s revenue came from a specific student’s athletic performance and they found that their performance often exceeded the monetary value of their scholarship (Kunkel et al., 2021). With NIL, athletes are now not only able to monetize their performance on the field but also their personal brand which enables athletes to be adequately compensated and create more economic opportunities in the world of college athletics. This benefits athletes a great amount and allows them to be paid for their efforts in athletic performance instead of generating revenue for their school or team profiting while seeing none of the money themselves.
In football specifically, athletes have benefited greatly from the addition of NIL to NCAA policies. Before the ruling, athletes often made decisions to leave their colleges and declare early for the NFL Draft because of financial incentives (Edwards, 2025); the possibility of professional contracts that guarantee hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions, was more attractive than continuing on in college. With NIL money, however, the opportunity to stay at college for longer and build up “draft stock” — the consensus of opinions on how good the player is — and thus get bigger first year contracts (Edwards, 2025). The benefit of draft stock further advances specific athletes’ value and allows them to profit equivalently to their actual worth.
There is no doubt that NIL is highly beneficial for the individual college athlete throughout their collegiate career. However, a lot of the concern from the NCAA and critics of the policy implementation come not from complaints about the effects on individuals but on athletic departments and colleges themselves instead. Athletic departments are often the main funding source of their respective schools and the NCAA and critics alike worry that the use of NIL will take money away from these schools and fund individuals instead. To start, NIL allows colleges to offer millions of dollars in scholarships to individuals such as Michigan’s estimated $10 million contract with QB Bryce Underwood (Teape, 2024). Although this contract may not have been funded by the school itself and instead by billionaires who are Michigan football fans, the lack of access to a rich alumni network makes recruiting for colleges without the financial backing to offer up these hefty scholarships much more difficult and some believe this causes them to lose out on many top players. This does not seem to be the case though as the number of Group of 5 college players drafted in the first round of the NFL draft has remained roughly the same over the past ten years from 2014 to 2024 and continues to create highly sought after recruits. In fact, NIL has helped athletes at smaller schools such as Ashton Jeanty of Boise State become more well-known and recognized for their talent and performance. Even the perceived negative consequences of NIL have been able to have some benefit on these smaller schools.
Additionally, studies have proven that college athletic departments do not actually suffer from individuals being able to profit off of themselves. The effects of NIL deals on athletic departments’ sponsorship revenue have had researchers extensively searching for answers and the predominant conclusion is that there is no significant negative effect (Cherullo, 2023). It seems that these athletic departments do not see prominent changes in the labor market of their own universities and individual athletes still continue to benefit.There are some important concerns to consider when looking at Name, Image, and Likeness and its impacts on the current state of collegiate athletics, especially the more popular sports such as football and basketball. In the future it may definitely cause some negative impacts on the culture of collegiate athletics. But why would we not pay the athletes? Even in professional sports, there are teams who have vastly different budgets for player contracts but little to no salary caps are implemented there. If the problem persists there are ways to help alleviate concern. Solutions could include implementing a salary cap for individuals or even a max amount a team can spend on player contracts as a whole. Regardless, the athletes need to be fairly compensated for their performance and the money that bigger organizations such as their team, their school, or the NCAA make off of them.
References
Cherullo, D. (2023). Evaluating the Effect of NIL Laws on College Athletic Department Evaluating the Effect of NIL Laws on College Athletic Department Revenue Revenue. https://scholarworks.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1481&context=utpp
Edwards, J. (2025). NFL Draft: How NIL and transfer portal have impacted small-school prospects, plus top options from 2025 class. CBSSports.com. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-draft-how-nil-and-transfer-portal-have-impacted-small-school-prospects-plus-top-options-from-2025-class/#
Kunkel, T., Baker, B. J., Baker, T. A., & Doyle, J. P. (2021). There is no nil in NIL: examining the social media value of student-athletes’ names, images, and likeness. Sport Management Review, 24(5), 1–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/14413523.2021.1880154
Maize & Blue Nation. (2023). East Carolina Pirates at Michigan Wolverines football. Wikipedia Commons. Retrieved April 28, 2025, from East Carolina Pirates at Michigan Wolverines. (2023, September 2). Wikipedia Commons. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:East_Carolina_Pirates_at_Michigan_Wolverines_football_%2853160607685%29.jpg.
Teape, K. (2024, November 25). Michigan Wolverines Received NIL Funding From Billionaire To Land Bryce Underwood. Sports Illustrated. Retrieved April 28, 2025, from https://www.si.com/fannation/name-image-likeness/nil-news/michigan-wolverines-received-nil-funding-from-billionaire-to-land-bryce-underwood