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The portal is an even larger problem.

The big schools can simply buy players, and tampering is rampant.

Capitalism baby.  

None of that would change NIL, which is outside of the direct pay-for-play type of scenario a couple of you are suggesting.

It's likely that the money coming from direct pay-for-play would trump NIL for the average players, but NIL is still going to eclipse what the schools will be able to pay directly, for the top talent.  So the top talent will still be a free agent market from year to year.

If the schools or conferences attempt to close the portal or block transfers, I suspect that now, unlike before, it will be immediately challenged in court.  I suppose the laws associated with non-compete might be used against the players transferring at will.  That's an area of law I know little about so can't speculate as to whether or not it would apply.

Of course there are some states where non-competes are illegal and non-enforceable, and many others where they're restricted.

No matter what direction it all goes, it's going to be a hot mess.

None of that would change NIL, which is outside of the direct pay-for-play type of scenario a couple of you are suggesting.

It's likely that the money coming from direct pay-for-play would trump NIL for the average players, but NIL is still going to eclipse what the schools will be able to pay directly, for the top talent.  So the top talent will still be a free agent market from year to year.

If the schools or conferences attempt to close the portal or block transfers, I suspect that now, unlike before, it will be immediately challenged in court.  I suppose the laws associated with non-compete might be used against the players transferring at will.  That's an area of law I know little about so can't speculate as to whether or not it would apply.

Of course there are some states where non-competes are illegal and non-enforceable, and many others where they're restricted.

No matter what direction it all goes, it's going to be a hot mess.

That's why I've been saying that letting them unionize and collectively bargaining with them, will make this I guess better?  At least they can reach some agreements on things

Yeah I think it's a good idea in theory, but the sheer scale of trying to get ALL college athletes and ALL college institutions to get on the same page, is daunting.  I'm not sure how it could really ever work in practice.  I suspect that some party is always going to want something different enough to torpedo the proceedings.

Yeah, I don't even know how the athletes themselves would unionize from scratch on a national level, across all sports.  And that's before you get to the actual negociations.  Plus, who are you negotiating with?  The NCAA?  The networks?  The conferences?  It's a mess.

I still would be curious as to what would happen if the reinstituted the one year sit out rule.  It's an participation eligibility rule.  It's not limiting earning, it's not limiting movement.  I guess you could argue that it would be limiting earning, because boosters are going to be less willing to pay for a guy to sit for a year.  But again, if that doesn't hold up in court, I don't see how the 4 year eligibility rule would.  Or that you actually have to even be enrolled in school.

Say Connor Cook after 2 bad years in the NFL, can't make a roster, but NIL boosters are willing to pay him to come play for MSU again.  How is not allowing that any different?

It's mildly funny that if this were the business world, most of us would be vehemently opposed to anything that would limit anybody's ability to earn.  Don't like your job, your boss, or your pay?  Get a different job, with a different company, for more money if you can do it.  Sure, some companies have non-competes, but it seems like they're becoming less favored, and only for really high up levels where they only apply to a few people.  I think I heard Non-Competes are not allowed in CA, which is one reason why Silicon Valley has thrived.  

I agree it creates complications, and I don't like to see players hopping around, but we made CFB a business, and it took 40+ years for it to catch up to it, but now all the "players" are being treated like they would be in the business world.  

Somebody in charge of the NCAA should have foreseen this a long time ago, and put the right structure in place to nip this in the bud, with players being paid and structure for NIL.  As has been stated, it's kind of hard to do it now because most of what is "needed" won't hold up in court.  I think this is the main reason why the top 50 or so schools will eventually HAVE to break away and basically create a league of their own with rules about transfers with player pay, NIL stuff, the whole 9 yards with collective bargaining.  You want to play in this league, here are the rules.  Don't like it?  Go to another league.  It would have to be very similar to the NFL, because the legal framework is already there.  

I do love that UNLVs downfall was being unable to navigate how to legally pay players

I think that any "death" or demise of CFB would be measured with $$$$$.  So long as there are eyeballs watching, it won't die.  It will change, of course, but it'll still be a primary sport UNTIL and UNLESS ratings drop.  I don't think we're there.

I think the appropriate metric would be something normalized, like average viewership per game-hour televised.  Because there are simply more games being televised these days, so more eyeballs are on the games in absolute numbers, but there's not necessarily more viewership per game.  In order to really understand if the popularity is waxing or waning we need to know if the normalized viewership is increasing or not.