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First, schools do not have some pot of money for NIL that they were taking in and withholding from players. That is not how the NIL funds get generated. So this money is essentially money that is now generated by an NIL-produced financial arms race that is new.

Second, the guys raking in NIL millions now appear to be a small chunk of really elite players. For a guy on the roster at the low end of the depth chart at a D1 school like Ball State or Western Michigan, the free ed really was a form of payment that had real value. Those guys were all net winners, not victims of hard hearted university exploiters.

So the argument here for your side is that in a market wide open a percentage of the guys make a lot more. But for a bigger percentage, the old system guaranteed a certain level of return.

If we carry it further, you would have to say schools should be able to strip scholarships from guys who are not living up to investment they receive in scholarships.

Not against NIL. Just, having seen how big-time athletes were treated at big programs before NIL, I can’t buy the notion that they were exploited innocents.