The transition from NIL to revenue sharing

[CHROMEBIRD]

Not to sully our fair and genteel discussion forum with b*sketball content, but an interesting thing is happening with bball recruiting & revenue sharing and it made me wonder if it had any downstream effect on wrestling. 

Previously, elite recruits could maximize their earning potential (at least in theory) by dragging out their commitment, building hype around their decision, and letting teams get into a bidding war for their services. But these days, kids who hold off on their recruitment for too long risk getting passed over when the transfer portal opens. A lot of coaches will hedge their roster-building with proven, experienced transfers over high schoolers who have zero college experience.

So, more top recruits may be willing to sign earlier now. The problem? Coaches & ADs don't have a clear idea of what their recruiting budget is (in many cases, programs won't totally know how much money they have to play with until after football season is over), and elite high school players are expecting a lot more than what schools are willing to offer at the moment. Plus, agents believe players should still be getting big paychecks like in the gravy train days before the House settlement. Classic wage-labor gap.

One coach predicts that programs may have to over-promise kids money and then figure things out if they find out later that they can't scrape together the dough. Like a recruit may be an early commit based on a $1mil offer and then a coach comes back in the spring like, "sorry, I just found out my salary cap and can only give you $250k max."

So does this affect wrestling at all? I don't know, this is all new and maybe the college sports market needs a little time to settle on its equilibrium. But if I'm a hs wrestler or coach, I'd probably advise my wrestlers to jump on any good offer they receive and sign as soon as possible. In the above scenario, where a bball or football coach is needing more money than they are allotted to sign a superstar recruit, it's not hard to imagine an AD being persuaded to reallocate cash from wrestling or other non-revenue sports to basketball or football. I say sign a contract and secure the money while it's there.

OTOH, I'm not sure if top wrestling recruits will feel as squeezed by the portal as basketball and football players. A lot of the top hs wrestlers are already in college wrestling rooms, competing internationally, and beating Senior level guys, so college coaches have a pretty good idea of exactly what they're getting. 

Either way, I do not envy coaches and programs having to sort this all out.

https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/college-basketball-commitments-plummet-amid-big-changes-in-recruiting-nobody-knows-what-to-do-right-now/

[bnwtwg]

If a football player is squeezed 75% below promise, then every olympic sport will be affected. Every AD will prioritize all salary cap toward revenue sports (Dodgers) and every olympic sport (Marlins, A's) will be a bottom feeder annually facing the chopping block. At least University of Kentucky was transparent when their government-employee athletic department transitioned to a private LLC business.

 

https://ukathletics.com/news/2025/04/24/new-model-represents-innovative-approach-to-future-of-college-athletics/
 

https://swimswam.com/the-legal-implications-of-the-privatization-of-kentuckys-athletics-department/