Long rambling post warning...
I don't think the narrowly defined SCOTUS decision is the issue, it's the NCAA governance. There are rules in place that member institutions are supposed to follow but the gray area is huge and enforcement impossible. I don't think the original intention of NIL was to put in place an elaborate (legal) system of donor > middleman/collective > athlete, but that's where we are. The original issue a few years ago was players bitching about video game companies using their name and likeness without compensation. The NCAA claims D1 college football is still an amateur sport but we're a long long ways away from that now.
The NIL system combined with the new easy transfer portal system has led to this mess. If just one of those were implemented, it would have resulted in a lot of change, but both at the same time has rapidly shifted the whole landscape of college football.
I think the future health of the sport is being challenged right now. I can't think of any healthy league of any type that allows free transfers of athletes at any time, much less a professional league (which NCAA D1 football is now). Professional service firms have used non-compete and non-solicitation agreements for a long time to protect the poaching of talent and clients. If the NIL system stays, enforceable rules need to be put in place or this sport will collapse.
Maybe an easy first step would be going back to the 1-year wait on transfer with only very limited exceptions like the coach leaving. Another step would be to allow some sort of poison pill in NIL contracts where an NIL gets a cut of any future transfer NIL (a sort of buyout). I don't know. What a mess.
I have casually kept up with small college football but my interest has been shifting more towards that as time passes.
Edit add: to not totally derail the thread, it's easy to see that Mr. Taylor can be great. I love that he's a Gopher and hope he can help define the program the next two or three years.
