Ohio State Football: Clarity needed when it comes to NIL before it’s too late

The Ohio State football team is preparing to close out its 2023 recruiting cycle next week on early signing day. Major concerns lay with NIL deals.

The Ohio State football team and head coach Ryan Day have the right to worry about NIL. With many schools treating NIL opportunities as the wild west, there needs to be clarity on where funds go and how they are applied. Transparency is needed.

Ryan Day came out this week and all but implied that there were kids, probably some five-star recruits, who wanted to come to Ohio State, but the NIL deals were too lucrative elsewhere for them to pass up.

Gene Smith gave his stamp of approval in a statement last week to three Ohio State collectives: Cohesion Foundation, The Foundation, and The “O” Foundation. Fans are being asked to donate to these collectives so that the Buckeyes will remain competitive in recruiting.

That is an awful burden to lay at the feet of Ohio State fans and it is time that the NCAA does something about it. Loose rules and leading the way with many of the NIL deals at other programs being kept hush-hush.

Ohio State rightly doesn’t want any part of that. But pretty soon, it might start hurting the program at large. This is from Ryan Day earlier this week when asked about recruits asking for NIL opportunities during visits, via Eleven Warriors:

"“It was never part of the conversation, then it became part of the conversation, and it’s trending towards being the conversation for a lot of folks.”"

Fans are already paying enough with ticket prices, merchandise, and donations to the schools directly. It is completely unfair to pin the lack of NIL opportunities on fans.

Another issue is with the collectives themselves.  Collectives are running their organizations with no transparency. Fans who donate are left to wonder how their donations are being spent.

These are all things that need to get figured out quickly. The NCAA cannot ignore them anymore. And if they do, what good are they? Why do universities need a governing body that won’t do its job?

Incoming NCAA President Charlie Baker needs to make his first priority fixing this mess that outgoing President Mark Emmert has left for him. Emmert’s legacy will be and should be tarnished by turning a blind eye to NIL on his way out the door.