Jan 12, 2024 | Marketing, NIL, Portal
As a college sports fan, you can’t look @ X [the social media platform formerly known as Twitter] without seeing big name athletes changing schools. It’s a daily waterfall, a deluge of names “committing” to play somewhere else. We use the “quotes” on purpose because they’re for sure committing to play somewhere else, it’s just – will they play there? Or will some other opportunity drop a bag of cash on their doorstep and they’ll go somewhere else?
Big Fat Claim: The transfer portal has been equally as powerful in changing college athletics as NIL.
It wasn’t long ago, right about the time NIL opened up, that athletes had to sit out a year if they transferred. Up until recently, they could go anywhere and play immediately, so long as they transferred UP or DOWN a division. (RIP the old D-1, D-2, D-3 classifications)
Cam Newton was at Florida, left and went to a JUCO in Kansas (down a division), transferred to Auburn (back up a division) and didn’t sit out a year. Those were the days… The days of suspending a player for a year because they wanted to play somewhere more challenging or different… Those were crappy days for student athletes and really, really good days for the schools who made b-b-billions off college athletics.
Now – mix instant transfers with NIL & collectives and you’ve got every player on a free agent, 1-year contract. There is literally no reason to stay at a program – outside of money. And I think this combination is what probably pushed Nick Saban to retire more than anything else.
Reggie Bush commented on a Sportscenter Instagram post:
(screen grab from Mark Heim, Alabama Media Group)
Here’s a link to Mark’s article on it too.
I don’t necessarily think what drove Coach Saban from the game was he couldn’t control 5 * recruits anymore, that he used to have some magic control that created an unfair advantage over other coaches and programs. I think what drove him to retire was the 1-year, free agent contract each athlete is now on. Players are free to leave when the portal opens, for any reason they want and it’s really hard to build a roster with development and consistency when personnel is turning over annually.
You know, like the water at the bottom of a waterfall…
Just check this article from The Athletic where – if you scroll and scroll and scroll to the bottom of all the transfer news – and click to load even more transfer portal news – as of Jan 4 there were 274 players in the portal!!! About 20 more names have been added since then, and that’s just the headline names…
The fine folks @ On3 logged 500 articles on transfer news, since Jan 1… (this post went live on Jan 24). Some quick #math, that’s 20-21 articles on portal and transfer news – per day…
It is absolutely WYLD to see all the transfers, the money, they hype – all favoring of the players. It’s stripped the NCAA and the universities of the power they had, given it back to the 18-20 year olds, and they’re ca$hing in.
Don’t blame them a bit, not even a little.
Kyle Jernigan is an accomplished digital strategies expert and entrepreneur with over two decades of experience in the digital marketing industry. He graduated from The University of Alabama, earning his degree in Computer Science. Kyle is the founder and CEO of Impact Fans. His passion for connecting people with technology is evident in his work with Impact Fans, making him a respected figure in collegiate sports.