Happy NIL Day!

As expected, and with no other choice really, the NCAA has approved an interim policy on NIL rights for student-athletes, which means that the more than 100-year-old ideal of amateur athletics is now dead.

There is no other choice because on Thursday, several state laws regarding NIL go into effect and the playing field would become grossly uneven for those states. Kentucky and Ohio acknowledged that when their governors issued executive orders that kept them in the same ballpark as the soon-to-be NIL states.

Of course now all 50 states are NIL states. So what’s next?

Easy: land rush!

Schools and athletes are trying to figure out how to manage all of this while businesses are trying to get in on the ground floor, if you will. Autograph shows could begin at any time, endorsements are already in the works and many companies are going to announce deals very quickly, perhaps even today or tomorrow. Social media is going to be lucrative for some as well.

Some schools like Rutgers may go for a unitary approach, providing a service to its student-athletes in partnership with a marketing firm (so does Rutgers get a cut?)

The transfer portal has been called the Wild West but that will be nothing compared to what we will see in the next couple of weeks. In fact, we’ll make two predictions: first, people are going to get saturated and sick of it all for a while before it reaches some kind of intelligent stasis, and two, athletes in Olympic sports and who are at smaller schools or who aren’t prominent at bigger schools will start complaining that they’re not getting their fair share.

Okay, two more: tax professionals are going to market services to student-athletes and those same student-athletes are going to freak once they realize how much they’re going to owe in taxes. We really, really hope someone is counseling them not to spend the part they’re going to owe.

• NCAA adopts temporary policy on name, image and likeness in seismic shift for college sports
• College athletes can finally profit off their celebrity. These five are ready.
• Alabama football players are feeling good as NCAA NIL policy starts
• Happy Gump Day, everyone. Tomorrow is the day that college sports are forever changed, as the NCAA’s new NIL policy goes into effect.
• College athletes gear up for influx of cash and pressure with name, image and likeness rights set to kick in
• Business of Football: The Supreme Court Sends a Message to the NCAA
• Rutgers announces NIL platform, partner ahead of NCAA changes
• Interim NIL Policy Approved by NCAA
• NCAA Division I Board of Directors Reportedly Approves Interim NIL Policy
• NCAA clears student-athletes to pursue name, image and likeness deals
• NCAA Approves Interim Name, Image and Likeness Policy
• REPORT: NCAA approves NIL policy
• Penn State: Nittany Lion athletes can profit from their NIL
• NCAA approves interim NIL policy in all 50 states
• Report: Temporary NIL regulations approved by NCAA