On April 10, 2024, the Center for the Advancement of Sport at the University at Buffalo held a round table discussion with four members of the UB Athletic Department. The four members of the UB Athletic Department included: Mark Alnutt, Vice President and the Director of Athletics; D’Ann Keller, the Deputy Director of Athletics; Kelly Cruttenden, the Associate Athletic Director for Compliance at UB; and Pete Lembo, the Head Coach of the UB football program. This discussion focused on understanding the new NCAA and topics like Name, Image, and Likeness (“NIL”) and the transfer portal for college athletes. [1]
NIL is still in its infancy. In July of 2021, the NCAA and several states enacted changes that provided athletes “with varying degrees of new protections and opportunities to make money by selling their name, image and likeness rights.” [2] For example, NIL now allows collegiate athletes to earn profits from jersey sales that bear their name, or work with local businesses to earn sponsorships. Another major change to the NCAA structure came in the form of the transfer portal. The transfer portal allows athletes to transfer to different schools and play immediately without getting permission from their coach or school. [3] Before the transfer portal existed, athletes had to get permission from their current school and then sit out a year as a penalty for transferring. [4] The transfer portal therefore creates a collegiate version of “free agency” where athletes can post their notices of intent to transfer and where coaches can search for potential recruits. [5] When these changes were made, Dabo Swinney called them “crazy”, and predicted that the new policies will cause chaos, tampering, and manipulation of young athletes. [6]
Three years after Swinney made these comments, athletic departments are experiencing these problems, but on a much larger scale. Athletes participating in revenue sports like football and basketball are frequently using NIL and the transfer portal, which has caused entire athletic departments to reevaluate their role in collegiate athletics.
The transfer portal, for example, has caused everyone in the UB Athletic Department to view themselves as primarily in the customer service business. This occurs now that athletes can freely transfer from schools with bad athletic teams and are constantly informed, through fellow athletes and friends, about better opportunities at other schools. Athletes also can do the opposite by telling their fellow athletes to avoid a certain school or programs. To guard against athletes leaving for “greener pastures,” entire athletic departments are now—more than ever— in the business of recruiting prospective athletes and keeping them happy. In the short term, these recruitment tactics may help these college athletes, but they may face larger, more significant obstacles once they graduate.
The transfer portal, due to the nature of athletes switching academic institutions, creates significant academic concerns for transferred athletes. First, transfers between schools can create challenges because not all academic credits will transfer equally. One institution may have a higher standard for a set of classes or have an entirely separate set of core classes that all students must take. Because of these procedural difficulties, transferred athletes may find themselves switching out of their intended degree at their initial institution to a degree in a different major – including, in some circumstances, a general studies degree. The members of the UB Athletic Department also believed that the transfer portal will make it difficult for college athletes to find success after graduation. Because these athletes will shift between schools, they will not have a strong connection with an alumni network from which to draw support. Concerns about the transfer portal are significant because athletes may chose to weigh short term gains over longer term benefits.
NILs, however, can be, as the members of the UB Athletic Department noted, a useful tool to avoid these harmful consequences of the transfer portal. By working with its alumni network, UB athletics can help provide its athletes with satisfactory NIL deals that will encourage them to stay at UB. Moreover, a strong NIL network will help attract prospective recruits or transfers who are motivated by the opportunity to earn compensation for their athletic ability. Team dynamics can, of course, be impacted by NIL deals where an entire team knows that one of their fellow teammates is earning a higher NIL deal solely because of the position they play. The members of the UB Athletic Department believed that building a strong communal culture and loyalty to the school will help mitigate their concerns with athletes constantly transferring.
In an era of complete uncertainty, one thing is for certain in collegiate athletics: no one knows what the future will look like.
[2] https://ubbulls.com/sports/2022/7/26/ub-name-image-likeness-program-built-in-buffalo
[3] https://www.bestcolleges.com/news/2021/12/22/ncaa-transfer-portal-nil-college-football-playoff/
[4] See id.
[5] See id.
[6] See id.
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