Column: The transfer portal and NIL structures must change for the future of college sports

Tom Izzo recently sounded off on the current transfer portal structure in college basketball, but this is just the tip of the iceberg for issues that are hurting college sports. Here is what’s wrong with the transfer portal and NIL, and what must change:

On Sunday, March 23, several college basketball teams celebrated the chance to advance to the second weekend of the 2025 NCAA Tournament. For 16 teams, hope was still intact that they could win a national championship this season — as in the one that is currently going on.

The following day, the spring transfer portal window opened, allowing hundreds of players to look for new homes while coaching staffs search the landscape for new contributors.

For those 16 teams still playing, a choice about time and resource allocation was at hand. How much effort should they put into preparing for next weekend’s games? How much time should be dedicated to assembling next year’s roster? For Michigan State head coach Tom Izzo, the answer was simple.

“I’m not dealing with (the transfer portal) at all,” Izzo said. “What my team has done is incredible, and I’m not ready to move on.”

These are strong words from one of the most successful and respected coaches in the nation on the state of college athletics. So much has changed in recent years with the advent of the transfer portal in 2018 and the legalization of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) in 2021. These changes on their own are not necessarily bad, but the unchecked nature of them certainly is.

For a long time, folks criticized the transfer structure set up by the NCAA. Before the portal, players transferring was exceedingly rare, and players that did were forced to sit for a year unless they were granted a waiver by the governing body of collegiate athletics.

It’s hard to find an argument against allowing athletes to transfer schools freely. Things change after players get on campuses for the first time. Perhaps the program simply isn’t what they thought it would be, playing time harder to come by than expected, the coaching staff changes, or its simply a case of being homesick. It’s unfair to lock kids into situations that are detrimental to their playing careers, as well as their mental and social health.

Furthermore, the chance for athletes to make money through sponsorship deals was long overdue, seeing as the college sports industry had previously profited off the free labor of athletes for decades.

However, the current portal structure and its combination with NIL has opened up a Pandora’s box that will be difficult to shut. When the spring transfer portal opened for men’s basketball in 2024, approximately 300 names were entered on the first day. This year, the estimates are as high as 800 names on the first day.

With the freedom for players to enter and exit the portal as they please and talk with other schools about everything from depth charts to NIL deals — not to mention the contact schools have with players who aren’t even technically in the portal — what we have is a structure that makes a player’s commitment to a school a year-to-year proposition at best.

It’s safe to say with money changing hands and players moving from team to team, college sports has shifted more towards the professional structure. While true to an extent, professional sports do a much better job of regulating the movement of players and money, making parity more likely and seasons more enjoyable for fans.

For example, the NFL and NBA allow players to change teams through free agency. However, players who change teams sign contracts whose terms are out in the open for all to see and fall in line with the requirements of collective bargaining agreements. Furthermore, teams have a salary cap they must stay under to ensure big market organizations don’t dominate.

Some might argue money changed hands under the table in recruiting long before NIL was a thing, leading to teams loading up rosters with talented players. While this likely occurred to an extent, it was probably not for the unchecked dollar figures that players go for today thanks to prominent boosters and NIL collectives leading the charge.

While its perfectly fine for players to make the money they’ve earned, a structure that allows them to do so from unchecked sources only further removes parity from sports, while also degrading the cultures of programs that coaches so desperately try to build.

Not to be the “old man yelling at the clouds,” but we don’t have to look back much further than Michigan’s 2023 football team for a case study of culture as a means of cultivating on-field success. Michigan’s roster was assembled almost entirely through high school recruiting rather than the portal, allowing players to develop a bond with their teammates and coaches to help them develop their skills. While countless players are able to immediately contribute at new schools, many more are sent back to level zero and often fail to get off the ground thanks to a culture or scheme they don’t mesh well with.

In other words, plenty of athletes transfer in the hopes of the grass being greener, only to find they might have been better off where they initially were. With money as a driving force for many players opting to leave their schools, the incentive to “go portaling” is even greater, making on-field performance and playing time less of a priority.

While it’s true transferring schools and NIL deals might represent the best chance for many athletes to earn any sort of paycheck or potentially advance to the pros, doing so without any sort of safety net can pose massive risks. After all, colleges and universities have always been intended to be places where young adults develop personal and professional skills. Creating a structure that jeopardizes that chance for athletes is not the correct way moving forward.

Prior to the Sweet Sixteen last weekend, a graphic made the rounds on social media which showed the original school for each player in each team’s starting-five — illustrating just how widespread player transfers are.

So what can be done to address this issue of mass transferring and prevent athlete commitments to their programs simply being on a year-to-year basis?

The older transfer rules that forced players to sit for a year are less than ideal, as it encourages players to cement themselves to their original schools regardless of how bad their situation is. We could look to what Jim Harbaugh advocated for in 2019 , a structure that grants players one free transfer without a requirement to sit.

By doing so, it would allow athletes to leave schools if they aren’t satisfied with their initial choice. However, it discourages athletes from changing schools every year. Exceptions could be made for this as well, such as a coaching staff change, but these must be strictly enforced and clearly outlined to prevent athletes from bending the rules.

A more extreme option could be mandating multi-year contracts for athletes that choose to transfer, ensuring they are deliberate and thorough in their choices to pick a new school. Take it a step forward by setting a more strict limit on how many years of eligibility athletes have so they don’t waste their time growing accustomed to new environments unless they find it absolutely necessary.

According to a report from Jon Rothstein in January , the NCAA was exploring giving athletes an additional year of eligibility, extending college eligibility to five years. Perhaps giving athletes a blanket of five years of eligibility and nothing more could complicate things less. In other words, giving athletes five years and telling them to spend them wisely might prevent athletes from taking unnecessary risks with their eligibility.

Furthermore, the tampering that occurs needs to be enforced much more tightly than it currently is. Coaches have routinely voiced their displeasure with having to essentially recruit their own players to stay each year.

As a cherry on top, the timing of portal windows needs to change to align better with the offseasons of their respective sports. It’s of no benefit to players or coaching staffs to determine their futures while they are still in-season. The current windows exist to align with the academic calendars for schools, but this seems inappropriate as academics are likely not at the forefront in many of these transfer decisions anyway.

What still complicates things is the money. NIL is the driving force behind many players transferring and committing to schools as high school recruits. These deals might be the only chance for many athletes to earn money, but the current structure incentivizes players to prioritize money above everything else, which could cost them more in the future.

It wasn’t too long ago athletes would choose programs based on the belief it could help them develop their skills and reach the professional ranks. The earning potential is much greater in leagues like the NBA and NFL anyway, so why not incentivize chasing a big payday rather than a quick one?

Why not mandate incentive-laden contracts for players? These contracts would allow players to earn money based on what they do on the field or the court rather than an up-front total. Athletes could have their money put into funds that aren’t to be accessed until after their playing careers are over to help at least somewhat preserve the idea they are “amateurs.”

Additionally, it might make sense to more strictly enforce schools and collectives being hands-off with NIL. Players are already expected to receive money from revenue sharing later this year, meaning its unnecessary for schools to add more money on top for their best players. When NIL began, the vision was for players to earn money through endorsement deals. The current structure allows athletes to make more money under the table and through handshake deals with their institution’s boosters, meaning they earn money for their skills rather than for their name, image and likeness as the rules dictate.

It would make sense for schools to connect players with financial advisors and agents to ensure they aren’t being foolish with their money. However, looking the other way when schools and boosters hand money to players is only escalating the issue.

While there are countless solutions that could help improve the current landscape of college sports, the only thing that’s for sure is this — change is needed. The advent of the portal and its combination with NIL have only turned college sports into the wild west and create environments that encourage young athletes to make risky decisions.

Furthermore, it has created an environment that’s unappealing to some of the best coaches in sports. In football alone, many coaches have bolted for the NFL, and others like Nick Saban have even retired in part due to the current landscape.

Nobody will mistake me for a lawyer or a businessman, but I do know for every one player that uses the transfer portal and NIL to their benefit, there are even more players that have set themselves back. Players deserve the chance to earn money and to be able to choose environments that fit their personal and professional goals. But they also don’t deserve to fall victim to a system that carries more risk than reward and has only become more complicated.