Three-time national champion coach Urban Meyer blasted the current status of name, image and likeness earnings in college football by calling it “cheating” during an interview on the “Lou Holtz Show.” The 59-year-old three-time national champion said NIL is “great” but lamented the “arms race” it has created.
“If you’re a woman basketball player like the great girl from Iowa and they want to put her on a billboard and pay her, they should be able to do that,” Meyer said. “But that’s not what happened. What’s happened is the arms race of collecting money from donors and the donors are simply paying players. That’s what I understand is happening, and I don’t like that.”
Meyer last coached in college football during the 2018 season. Though that was only six years ago, where it was another era entirely. Since Meyer’s seven-year run at Ohio State concluded, the arrival of NIL, unlimited transferring and conference realignment have rocked the sport.
“If Lou Holtz or Urban Meyer or Marvin Harrison Jr., or C.J. Stroud, they want to go use their name and help sell cars, help a business, that’s great,” Meyer said. “But to have a 17-year-old demand money for a visit, to pay these players a lot of money to go visit a charity for 20 minutes and they write you a check for $50,000, that’s cheating. That’s not what this is all about. I’m very disappointed in where it went.”
While a large-scale revenue-sharing model is in the developing stages in college athletics, player compensation for now is stuck in the collective model under the guise of “NIL,” which doesn’t sit well with Meyer.
“There’s these things called collectives where they go out and get money from donors and get this big, giant mass of money and they pay players,” he said. “That’s not what the intent is.”
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