NIL Collectives and The Disadvantage Dilemma: Disparities And Challenges In Collegiate Athletics

For a long time, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)’s principle of amateurism, the concept that student-athletes should not profit from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) while competing in collegiate athletics, was strongly upheld. However, it quickly became a challenge for the NCAA to defend its principle of amateurism after thousands of advocates, including universities and student-athletes themselves, began to criticize the NCAA. Finally, after decades of fighting for more equitable rights for student-athletes, the NCAA made a change to its NIL Policy as a result of two major landmark cases. The NCAA, however, now faces another challenge amidst this major achievement for student-athletes: NIL Collectives. Organizations created by prominent alumni, boosters, and businesses, NIL Collectives function separately from the colleges or universities. But NIL Collectives seem to inherently be school-specific, as they are built by the alumni and school supporters who create the collective. Recently, NIL Collectives have begun engaging in recruiting actives that explicitly go against the NCAA prohibition against “pay-for-play” by inducing student-athletes to attend and play at the college or university with which the collective primarily works. This has led to unfair recruiting advantages in collegiate athletics between power schools and smaller schools without the support from prominent alumni and businesses. In an effort to level the playing field amongst the larger and smaller schools, this paper evaluates a potential solution for the unexpected issues the NCAA faces because of NIL Collectives.