But I'm still a little bummed every time I see yet another example of what a big business college sports have become. To be clear, the examples are everywhere around campus at ND, and I'm happy the money is starting to make it to the people on whose backs everything is built on, but there was always something special with the idea that kids were playing for their schools (even if that idea has been BS for a good 40 years anyway.) Maybe I'm just bummed I can't fool myself like I used to be able to.

To be clear, my stance on this stuff is predicated on the notion that CFB will never return to what it once was. It's just irreversible. So, assuming that, I'm glad the players are getting a cut of this massive industry.

I worked video gaming tournaments right as the money scene started to drop in. Companies would come in and sponsor teams of kids for thousands, the kids got free stuff, everyone loved it.

Unfortunately the darker side was the exploitation. Greedy parents, people with no financial sense. I watched a mother break down in tears because her son’s prize money wasn’t getting awarded until 6-8 weeks, and she needed the money for rent because she’d spent it on getting him a new PC.

I absolutely agree these are legal adults who were more or less being profited off of by universities, and now they are free to make those sorts of deals. However, I worry that this opens up the doorway to a new category of sleazebags who will attempt to exploit them in other ways, not to mention greedy parents. I think I would have been more comfortable with escrow revenue sharing - university branding is a lot of the draw, thus a lot of the money.

I realize my naive pipe dream of having a separate for-profit league and a borderline club athletics league will never come to fruition, but I’d love to see a place for kids that want to use their talents along with their academic capabilities. The genie isn’t going back in the bottle, though.

Enough to be ranked the #1 recruit in the country and earn a scholarship to one of the best programs in the country. If he doesn’t pan out then he at least will get a nice paycheck to compensate his hard work up until this point. Worst case scenario, a marketing company will be out $1.4MM and maybe they’ll reconsider giving deals this early in the process.

I don’t see how it’s any different than a player getting a shoe deal when they get drafted in the NBA without playing a game yet. CFB hasn’t been amateur athletics in decades, and there’s really no (realistic) way to reverse it. It feels a helluva better to see the kids getting some of this money instead of commissioners and coaches.

A lot of people have very little faith in 18-22 year olds to be responsible. I do hope the schools ensure that they help guide their players who are getting these larger paydays. The NFL has seen success ever since they addressed the issues they had with financial irresponsibility among their players. It should be easy to translate this to the 0.1% of CFB players who get anything more than a few thousand dollars from NIL.

He was a star at Carroll and hasn’t played a down at OSU. You sound like Nevin Shapiro.

A private company deemed him worthy of $1.4MM which is now entirely legal. How can you compare that to some Ponzi scheme douche lord hiring prostitutes for 17 year olds?

Again- how is this different from a player being a star for Kentucky basketball and signing a million dollar shoe deal before playing a single minute for the Sacramento Kings? In both scenarios, a company has decided to gamble that an athlete with huge potential is worth striking a deal on the ground floor of their next level.

If it doesn’t work out and Ewers doesn’t pan out, I think the marketing company will be just fine, and no one will be harmed in the process.