NIL is great for the NBA

And it’s going to save college basketball, too

BY HENRY ABBOTT

TrueHoop began in 2005. Since then, I would guess the NCAA has come up over a few hundred times—zero of which were especially positive. Not too long ago, we had a post headlined “College basketball is widely, deeply, and fiercely corrupt” that concluded with a quote from basketball whistleblower Christian Dawkins, proclaiming: “The moral of the story is fuck the NCAA.” 

It has been a rough patch for men’s college basketball. In the last few years, the game’s power brokers have popped up in Congressional hearings, investigative documentaries, and FBI wiretaps. The four least-watched NCAA title games have all happened since 2018. 

Everyone knows the NCAA is all messed up. In a Financial Times video, U.S. senator Chris Murphy says: “The NCAA is one giant walking, talking, antitrust violation. … They have colluded, through the schools, to set the wages that every student athlete will make. … That’s the definition of collusion. … We would never allow this in any other industry.” In the same video, lawyer Darren Heitner says the NCAA’s current NIL policy emanates from a 2021 Supreme Court decision which “basically called the NCAA a cartel.”