The fight to stamp out pay-for-play in college sports: ‘The lawsuits will start flying’

Four years ago, the century-old model for college sports was turned on its head. College athletes began earning name, image and likeness money in 2021. It didn’t take long for boosters to exploit a loophole and weaponize NIL deals as a means to entice recruits and transfers.

NIL collectives sprang up to manage the competitive field. Schools initially shunned them, but soon realized they had no choice but to embrace them.

As of last week, those same schools are now at war with those collectives.

Empowered by the game-changing House settlement, schools are mounting a grand last stand to declare once and for all that collectives can’t claim pay-for-play is a valid business. An entire industry’s business model — itself only a few years old — is now at stake, not to mention hundreds of millions in contracted payouts to athletes.