“I’m happy for those guys.”

Again, this is one of those moments when I hope you’ve got an Athletic subscription, because David Ubben’s piece on NIL compensation ($$) is definitely worth a read, starting with this lede:

Here’s a sentence I’ve never heard: “Does that kid working the register at the student bookstore on campus know they have to pay taxes?”

He’s right.  All this faux concern about how college athletes will handle their brave new world — whether it comes from resentment, amateur romanticism, or whatever other motive you may want to attribute — is exactly that.  Fake.

I don’t pretend to know where things are headed or where they’re likely to finish.  I suspect that anyone who pretends they do know after a week or so is talking straight out of their ass.  What I do know is that these kids’ lives got a little bit fairer, because they’ve been given a little more control over what is theirs.  The rest of this is nothing but noise, at least for now.  As Ubben puts it,

Then there’s the possibility that some players might earn more than others. Is that fair? Will there be fistfights in the locker room borne of jealousy? We don’t hear many tales of top salespeople in companies being assaulted in their offices by less-productive employees who believe they should earn a commission on someone else’s sales out of fairness.

Should the amount of money players can make be capped? Find me something less American than that. Other than college sports a week ago.

Far too much of the conversation has centered around inspiring fear of what might happen to a few people in a few instances. Far too little has centered around what will happen for far more athletes now and in the future.

My less than educated guess is that for most college athletes things won’t change too much because of NIL.  But maybe they’ll change just enough to make a difference.

Some might waste it and find themselves at the end of their careers with little to show for it. But there have been enough cautionary tales of players going broke in professional sports to learn from, and it doesn’t take millions of dollars to change a life. Sell some T-shirts, hold a few autograph signings or get a local endorsement from a car dealership. What can $20,000 in endorsement money do?

Over the course of a college career, that’s a realistic earning goal for a lot of athletes. And many athletes across a variety of sports will cross that modest threshold in a single year. It’ll improve their college experience substantially. For some, it could change their life.

Again, I don’t know.  And I can’t say that I really care where the numbers may wind up landing.  I never have.  It’s enough for me that these athletes have been given the opportunity to… well, have something of the same opportunity you and I had when we started out.  A chance to make something without being prevented from doing so because somebody went to great (and illegal) lengths to preserve a lucrative business model.  With that opportunity will come experience, some good, some bad.  But at least they’re now in a world where they get to learn about that.

I’m more than good with just that.