Can the Ohio State Football team win NIL bids for top prospects?

We live in a brand new world folks. The world of NIL is here and it looks like it’s not going anywhere. And yet, it’s already a mess. If programs like the Ohio State football program want to compete for top prospects now, they better have boosters ready to open their checkbooks.

In both college football and college basketball, multiple athletes have threatened their current schools with entering the transfer portal unless their NIL deals increased in compensation. They are holding schools hostage with these deals even when the schools aren’t supposed to be the ones to facilitate them.

The same thing is happening on the recruiting trail. If Ohio State wants the top quarterback in the country, you bet that a booster is going to have to be willing to shell out hundreds of thousands of dollars for him to come to Columbus. Recruits are now going to the highest bidder.

So can the Ohio State football program stack up against other programs? Sure. There are enough local boosters and businesses around Columbus that can set a kid up with some money. If you live around here, I’m sure you’ve seen some commercials with Buckeyes in them already.

This is something new that Ryan Day and his coaching staff have to worry about. They haven’t had any issues with players demanding any extra money or anything like that yet, but I wouldn’t be shocked if that issue reared its ugly head at some point.

We’re going to see a whole new generation of recruits spring up that are just looking for the most amount of money possible and that’s all they’ll care about. What that will do for college athletics at large is unclear, but I can already see some people griping about it on social media.

We probably won’t know the full effects of NIL for another few years, but it’s got some mixed results so far.