My seven year old daughter had a lemonade sale with her classmates to raise money for gas to take a bus on a short field trip to learn and have fun. They came up short a few dollars and received the opportunity to walk. Anyone who has donated 20 dollars or more to a child selling lemonade knows the feeling of pure joy in not only their smiles, but in your own heart as you feel good about what you did. This is assumed of the vast majority of our readers except for those whose hearts are two sizes too small. College student-athlete, Bryce Underwood received a 10 million dollar deal to commit to the University of Michigan, that primarily is paid through a donor/sponsor. Had that same donor or sponsor wanted, they could have handed out 500,000 twenty dollar bills to Michigan kids and created so many smiles across communities. Programs for Extended School programs like my daughters would absolutely thrive on a grant of 250,000 which would enable them to pay for gas and teacher salaries. Forty Michigan charities could have received 250,000 dollar grants to use for good to great purposes if that 10 million was given to them instead of to lure a LSU commit to Michigan. Prior to a judge deciding that college athletes needed to be paid rules forbid these types of payments for athletes and their were rules restricting student athletes from transferring for any reason, let alone for financial compensation. This is the new normal for big programs stuck in a new and more expensive arms race.
As the NCAA attempts to fly a plane while building it; (see https://www.sportpolicycenter.com/news/2025/2/28/building-the-plane-while-flying-the-plane) schools, coaches, and athletes have been in a circus with limited assurance in anything they do. Athletes of high end talent seem to be making great money while lower ranking players on their teams are desperate to find new homes as they are told the roster restrictions require them to no longer have a locker or chance to play. Potential walk-ons are told they should go somewhere else as the paths at most schools appear to be closed creating scarce opportunities for seniors graduating high school, as seniors with three years of experience are a dime a dozen in the transfer portals of most sports. Non-revenue sports, Olympic and Women’s sports are feeling the stress on their schools as resources flow away from them so that the big sports for men can stay competitive. Even the biggest schools are dismissing tutors, coaches and services to prepare their future budgets while some smaller schools are moving down or opting out of agreements and settlements with concern for their ability to compete. What can you mortgage to stay competitive in the arms race?
How much of our community dollars and our wealth as a nation should be invested in paying college athletes so much money? If not lemonade, how do we hope the people of our country choose to invest their money and how does our tax incentives encourage where money goes? Where is tax incentives given and most importantly what is our cultural norms towards philanthropy and what our country prioritizes as a collective group? Do we produce elite athletes or do we try to produce many healthy citizens who are pretty good at sports? Should money be spent on medical, fire or police services instead? Healthy communities should have sports and wellness opportunities but how does that balance with our investing in military defense, public parks or tax breaks to help lemonade stands? What is the cost to all other sectors and programs if spending continues to flow towards salaries for college athletes at the expense of these other community assets and affordances?
Looking at the future, it is flat out scary to think of how ridiculous the level of salaries could get if NIL and school money both are on the table with limited restrictions. The idea that someone could be on a new team every season is not something welcome at the pro level. When a system is supposed to support people receiving education in a set time frame with classes that progress and scaffold, the idea of unrestricted movement runs contrary to the idea of having these time periods overlap in an efficient and effective manner. Stipends and athletic support networks added by universities years ago seemed like a middle ground with most agreeing that we do not want to go to a system that leaves athletes short of support as paying athletes as well as compensating them in other ways. Throwing out all the positive change could create new challenges and issues so now that the “Geni” has been let out of the bottle, we will have to be careful putting the “Geni” back. Promises have been made and people have made huge transfer decisions already. The situation has reached such a crossroads that President Donald Trump is now enacting policy to address the state of college athletics. The Circus appears to be just getting going.