There are varying opinions on the effect of NIL. I believe it will lead to students shopping schools for the one that will give them the most NIL dollars. The new transfer rules allow students to move from school to school yearly without losing eligibility.
Schools get revenue from tickets, media, sponsors, and donations. These are not bottomless pits of money. A local business that advertises or donates to an athletic program does not have money available for NIL. Thus, the money they use to pay players will reduce the money paid to the schools.
Schools can not pay players, nor can they guarantee NIL dollars. Schools can give scholarships to students from any source, but reduced donations and sponsor dollars may impact the available amount.
NIL enticements can not come from ticket revenue and media contracts.
NIL (Name Image Likeness) allows students to profit from their athletic status by selling their services to promote businesses. Differing state laws and the Supreme Court case NCAA v Alston have made NIL dollars the norm.
I saw my first NIL advertisement while in Arkansas for a marathon. Two University of Arkansas male basketball players were in a TV commercial. I don’t remember the business they were promoting.
During that same trip, a local news story reported that John Daly II and his father, golfer John Daly had signed a million-dollar NIL deal with Hooters. John II will attend John’s alma mater, the University of Arkansas.
Male football and basketball players will benefit most from NIL. However, the talent should spread economically rather than consolidate in a few schools.
Before NIL, 5-star recruits would attend schools with the best facilities, the best chance of winning a national championship, and improving their NFL draft status. Looking are recent CFP participating schools, those players leaned toward Alabama, Georgia, Clemson, Oregon, Oklahoma, and Ohio State.
With NIL, 5-star recruits may ignore these criteria and sign with a school that provides them the largest financial benefit. Even though schools cannot guarantee NIL money, each school will have a track record of NIL money awarded in past years.
A current trend is school booster programs creating NIL cooperatives. The cooperatives will let individual donors contribute money to the pool without having to promote a personal message. Boosters desiring a competitive team may donate to the cooperative instead of the school. Controllers of the collective can then target the pool to the talent. 5-star recruits will have a history of a school’s collaborative giving.
Just because the six football programs listed above can attract big crowds and media dollars does not mean they have the supporters with extra NIL dollars to spend.
Somewhere, the 5-star offensive linemen will recognize they are worth as much as a 5-star quarterback and gravitate to the schools with the available NIL dollars.
With the jump of Southern Cal and UCLA to the Big Ten and Oklahoma and Texas to the SEC, these two conferences may get more significant media contracts. But the chance of winning the conference also gets more complicated. Thus, NIL dollars in the schools, not in the Big Ten and SEC, may boost the caliber of these programs.