College Football Needs to Learn a Lesson From MLB

If you follow college football, you’ve probably heard about Matthew Sluka. He’s the quarterback at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas who decided to sit out the remainder of this season because of a pay dispute. Sluka played four seasons at College of the Holy Cross, where he won more than he lost and set a record for rushing yards in a single game for a quarterback. Last December, after his head coach left for another job, Sluka put his name on the NCAA’s official register of athletes looking to switch schools, known as the transfer portal. The NCAA established the portal in 2018 to help ease the work of administrators. A pair of momentous rule changes have since transformed it into a multibillion-dollar clearinghouse for athletic talent. In 2021, under pressure from state lawmakers and federal courts, the NCAA freed players to change schools without the penalty of having to sit out a season. And for the first time it allowed them to earn money through name, image and likeness (NIL) marketing deals.