NCAA Basketball: 3 ways to make the Transfer Portal better

Limits to NIL Earnings

This is the one that is bothering so many fans of this great sport. I do believe in NIL and I do think players should be compensated for their Name, Image, and Likeness. I think they should be able to profit off of jersey sales, podcast appearances, autographs, commercials, billboards, and the like. NIL has turned into what everyone feared it would with no regulation and that is a pay-for-play incentive. It has also proven to be a huge factor in the transfer portal and building a team. Any team who wants to build a competitive team and get the best players is going to have to pay for them. A lot like Free Agency.

This was never supposed to be the intention of the NIL, but now some of these players like Hunter Dickinson for example are prepared to make a ton of money in NIL and it is more profitable for those players to stay in college. The high-profile transfers from power schools are coming into their meetings with coaches with a number in mind for what they are expecting to get in the portal and various different NIL collectives at the schools are prepared to pay for that or let the player walk. It gives schools very little leverage, especially with transfers. This is also drastically going to hurt the mid-majors as they will have to fill their rosters every year with newer players even more than they do currently.

NIL has leveled the playing field and has made everyone more competitive as evidenced by the results of the NCAA tournament. I don’t know if this proposal will deter kids from transferring but I do know it would make it easier for everyone to recruit good players in the portal. If the NIL is going to be used to pay for play, it is because no one has answers as to how to stop it at the moment.

There needs to be some minimums and maximums for age groups of the players. Freshman would get a certain dollar amount range and it would move up to seniors and grad transfers accordingly. That way coaches are going to be focused on building their teams based on chemistry and fit within the offense. I can 100% guarantee this is not going to happen as there is too much money to go around for these schools not to try and build their roster.

Changes need to happen and the answers are not simple. These are things that would work and are relatively simple to implement and would make things a lot easier to manage. Keep in mind that next season the Covid year is over so the number of grad transfers will likely diminish. How will it affect the big names entering the portal though?  Time will tell.