As high school spring sports continue to wind down, the mind drifts to upcoming spring football camps. The Owls football team will take to the field during the weeks of May 16 through 26 and then have the Spring game on May 27. College football spring games are just around the corner but the big talk I have seen this week is about the transfer portal and NIL deals.
The transfer portal allows for a player that has played at another university, the thing that is fueling most of these transfer are money. College football recently introduced Name, image or likeness (NIL) where college players can get paid for playing sports at their universities. Alabama’s head coach spoke out this week about NIL deals by saying, ““I think that was the original intent,” Saban said. “Now people have started these collectives that raise money to create opportunities for players, I think that’s an unintended consequence. We didn’t do that last year and our guys made more money than anybody in college football, on their own, representing themselves. Creating a good image, being good players, creating value for themselves.” Lane Kiffen, head coach at Ole Miss, can’t seem to keep one of his former teams off his mind when it comes to NIL deals. Kiffen state, "And you’re going to have all these locker room dynamics where now you’re reading, you got a player coming into school over there in East Tennessee for $8 million dollars that hasn’t played a down," Kiffin added. "And you’ve got a locker room saying, ‘Wait, now what if the guy doesn’t play? How’s that going to work? How is that donor going to feel that paid all that money, when the guy’s not playing?’ So you’ve got a lot of things that haven’t been figured out at all." Money is what makes the world go around now I guess it does the same for college sports.
As always stay safe and healthy