The Culture Punch Podcast

CPP EP 111 | Game Changer or Game Ruiner? The Impact of NIL Deals and Transfer Portal on College Basketball

• Kid Culture • Episode 111

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NIL Madness -- Does Money Ruin Loyalty in College Basketball? Let's discuss how NIL deals and the transfer portal is essentially ruining the game of basketball at the college level. 

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I haven’t done one of these in a while, but let’s get into it. All right, so like I said in the intro, I haven’t done one of these in a while, but I want to get into it. I know, I’m going to start by saying this. I know there’s a lot of people out there that believe college athletes should be paid. I’m one of them. I was an advocate from the beginning. You can go back to a previous podcast that’ll explain and show that I believe that college athletes should be making something because a lot of people don’t go beyond college. And I’m trying to think of what was his name, Johan Wagner, I believe his name was for Memphis. He’s a perfect example of what can happen. He didn’t ruin his college career, but he almost stayed in Memphis and he ended up having, gosh, what was it, some kind of internal problems where he had to retire early. Now he made money in the NBA, good for him. He was a one and done. And he was one of the first one and done when the term came to be. He went to the NBA, made some money before he ended up having to retire. He was a great player. Anyway, he had a lot of potential. But my point is, is that there’s a lot of athletes out there that will not get past college to the next level or won’t be, have the same star power that they had in college that they will have anywhere else. A perfect example that comes to mind is Tyler Hansboro. For those of you guys who are old school basketball heads, you guys know that Tyler Hansboro played four years at North Carolina. This was probably between 2006 and 2009, somewhere between there. Maybe a little bit sooner, a little after, give or take, right? My point is, he was probably the biggest college star at that time and he was huge for North Carolina. He was a great player. His talents didn’t necessarily translate into the NBA. He was in the NBA for a little bit, so he didn’t immediately go to the D League, what was called at that time. Now it’s the G League. He didn’t immediately do that, but he did play in the NBA for a little bit before having to, I don’t know what happened to him after the NBA. He could have gone D League or G League, he could have gone overseas. My point is that he’s a great example for someone who probably should or probably would have made a lot of money in college if NIL was a thing back then. So I am all for college athletes getting paid and I’m also all for college or student athletes or students being in school as long as they can because of the benefits that a college degree can give them. A lot of people will argue against it because of the tuition and the fees and everything they have to pay back, but if you, let’s say you do graduate and you end up playing a couple of years, you can pay that off and then now you have a degree to finish off with. So there are some positives to that. My point with why I’m bringing up NIL to me, what has overshadowed even the March Madness, the tournament itself, which we’ve had some good games. We’ve had the first time since 2008 when Mike Kansas-Jayhawks won the whole thing, have we had all four number ones be in the final four. And ironically enough, it was in San Antonio like it is this year. It’s been good basketball. I have Florida, that’s my pick, that’s been my pick from the beginning. They’re still in it. I know Duke has come on and they’re looking good, but they’re relying a lot on Cooper Flag. He had some help the other day, which is good, good for Duke, but I don’t know, I don’t see Duke doing it. I think if anyone is going to take it other than Florida, it’s probably going to be Houston, honestly. Houston is, if they can produce on the offensive side, like they have been, their defense is almost second to none. They play hard. And then of course you had, what would have been a better matchup had Jujube not tore her ACL, but then you have UConn, number two UConn against USC. And that would have been a good match. And it was a good game. It still was a good game. Paige went off like she’s been going off. Number three now, I think, behind Maya Moore and, oh my gosh, I can’t remember her name. Brendan Stewart, what’s her first name? But she’s third behind her now in terms of points at UConn. And that was a good game. So that would have been even better had Jujube been there. So now, TCU against Texas, that was a good game too. So you have these good games that are going on. And to me, again, what is being overshadowed, the games themselves, which sucks because, like I said, there has been some really, really good games. But I want to talk about the transfer portal. The transfer portal is getting ridiculous. Here in New Mexico, the Lobos did well. They made it, they’re one away from the sweet 16. So they beat Marquette. That’s a big win. And then they go on to lose to Michigan State, who ended up going all the way to the elite eight and ultimately ended up bound out to Auburn. But that was a good game too. Michigan State showed that, you know, Auburn did what they were supposed to in terms of you eliminate Michigan State from those second chance points, those offensive rebounds, and you can interrupt their game. And that was a big part of their offense was their rebounding, their force on the board. And the Lobos did a good job of maintaining them in the first half, second half they went off on offensive rebounds. But for the most part, if they, you know, the Lobos had a good game plan and they almost, they were almost able to do it. But I don’t want to digress too much about the game themselves. I don’t want this podcast to be that long. I want to dive into what I’m seeing with the transfer portal. You have a lot of people that are taking advantage of the NIL deals that are out there and the transfer portal is one of them. So the perfect example, what is her name from Notre Dame? The girl from Notre Dame, she was projected to go top five, maybe even two or three in this year’s WNBA draft, but instead has opted to enter the transfer portal. Played from Notre Dame last season is going to enter the transfer portal because there’s more money entering the transfer portal and staying with NIL than going to the WNBA. This is one of those situations where it kind of contradicts what I said because yeah, it’s good for her to stay in college. It’s good for her to make her money instead of going to the next level or whatever because a lot of kids will go to the next level right away because the situation is at their end or whatever. So they end up having to make money a lot faster and so they jump, they jump ship. But what I’m seeing with the transfer portal that I’m not liking and I can already see this, and I probably sound like an old head that were saying this before, but I can see it as like the downfall of college basketball is you are going to start losing a lot of these Cinderella stories. Those are not going to be a thing anymore because what’s going on now is if a kid feels, if he’s being scouted, right, let’s say he’s being scouted, and let’s say you have a pretty decent coach. Let’s go back to when Petino was at Iona. He is scouting these players and he carries a name with him. Right? Iona is probably, I don’t know, Iona’s situation, but let’s just say that they, let me look them up real quick where they are so I can make a point. Iona University. Oh, sorry, that’s not, so it’s in New York. Right, they’re in New York. So now you’re competing with, I know Temple’s in Philly, but that’s close. You’re competing with, what’s the other school I’m thinking of? St. John’s obviously, Syracuse. Things like that, that you’re competing against to get these players. I think Villanova’s in New York too. So you’re competing with these schools to get these players. Iona doesn’t have that much money. So even though Petino carries a name, he is going to be out-pocketed by the money of these other schools. So he’s essentially going to lose these people in recruiting to begin with. Or they’re going to go to Iona because of the name and in one year’s time, they have one good season and one year’s time, they’re entering the transfer portal to make more money. And that’s what we’re seeing now. I was trying to find the list because I was on Bleach’s report, which that app sucks now, that they did the update. I wish they would have kept it the way they did, but I’m over here looking and I cannot find, maybe I’ll just Google transfer portal so far, but what I’m seeing is that a lot of the, there’s no loyalty. So going back to the point that I was trying to make is you have a team like the Lobos who are, it’s a, I mean, we bleed basketball down here. I mean, things are good when the Lobos are doing well. We had a good coach, we had good recruiting class, we had good players. Donovan Dent, Mount West Player of the Year, he’s gone. He’s now in UCLA. We essentially lost True Washington, which was our number three. Nolan I think is gone. Now Junior Joseph graduated. I’m still is gone. So you’re losing everybody. So now all these, all these middle school tiered schools, recruiting is going to become that much harder because of the NIL money. And I know this is probably going to be a controversial take, but part of being a man and part of coming out of high school and almost getting slapped in the face by manhood, the first decision you have to make is what university am I going to? And you’re not making that decision alone. You’re going into that and you’re being, you’re making that decision with a, with an AAU coach, a high school coach, a parent, an uncle, someone is helping you make that decision on where you want to go. And it’s a decision you got to take your time on making because for those that don’t remember, in order for you to transfer before you had to sacrifice a year of eligibility. So you, you, you had again, an adult choice to make. If you chose the wrong school out of high school, you had to choose, okay, if I’m in the wrong situation, can I stick this out? Or is it better for me to lose a year of eligibility and transfer somewhere else? And I actually enjoyed that rule because it puts a little bit of hesitation on the side of the player to transfer and almost say, Hey, look, kid, you’re an adult now, decisions we make tend to have lasting effects. If you chose wrong, you know, you, you have choices, of course, you always have a choice, but here are the consequences to your choices. And so I think the processes of choosing what school you’re going to go to out of high school aren’t going to be as thorough and aren’t going to be, aren’t going to be the same. It’s going to be a quicker decision. And that’s because I feel like they’re like, it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just go somewhere else. I could play the next year with more money. JT Toppin, Texas, Texas, one of, one of the Texas, Texas biggest, I mean, by biggest, not tallest, but like one of their better players. He was a Lobo last season freshman. He wasn’t on no one’s map, no one’s radar, but Tina went and got him, gave him a platform. He shined and then left us a year later because we couldn’t compete with the NIL money. And good for him. I think he was the big 12th player of the year or something like that. You know what I’m saying? So it’s like good for him. It hurts as a Lobo fan. I’m happy for the kid because he’s on a big platform and I, I’m a Kansas J-Hawk fan. So I can’t even imagine going to Allen Fieldhouse, playing the J-Hawks, playing, well, Texas isn’t, I don’t know if they’re in it this year, they’re SEC. I think they went the SEC, but even playing Arizona, Arizona is one of the schools that’s now in the big 12. So playing Arizona, playing Kansas, going to these schools that you grew up just admire, good basketball schools, Kansas State, like it’s like, wow, that’s amazing to be able to go into these arenas and play, play against these legendary coaches. So I can see how it’s enticing to go over that. I get it. Going back to it, JT Toppin, imagine what would happen if you would have stayed with the Lobos. The year they would have had, we won the Mount West outright for the first time in 10 years, a decade or something, maybe even a little more. And imagine having Toppin added to that. Another big board, another one that can hang on the boards, we probably could have got Michigan State. We probably would have got Michigan State and advanced the next round. And I think it was Ole Miss, right? Ole Miss is where they played afterwards. Ole Miss is a tough team. It would have been one of those years where we could have made actual noise, right? And I’m not going to do the what-ifs because that doesn’t matter. But my point is, these decisions that these kids are making are not holding any weight anymore. There’s no consequences. I’m happy that you can go get your money. You’re right. I’m sorry I’m going to be going for you to get it, but here’s the second part of what I think is going to happen is education is not being prioritized anymore. That’s already a fact because in order for your transcripts to move over and everything, like, it’s a process, right? And you’re just going to keep jumping. One of the things, the main reason why I wanted to do this podcast actually is because I saw something that a kid from Alabama, I can’t remember his name because I didn’t follow Alabama this year, but he is going to be playing for his fourth school in four years, pretty much. So he’s going into his fourth year and this will be his fourth year. So that means freshman he played for one university, sophomore he did for one, junior he played for, or freshman he played for a university, sophomore he played for Kentucky, junior he played for Alabama and now he’s transferring and he’s going to play for another university. That’s ridiculous. Let’s call it what it is and that’s ridiculous. The fact that you have that, you’re taking, and I’m not, here’s the thing that makes me mad because it’s kind of with the tush-push rule, whatever, Philly is you can’t get mad at them for innovating, right? And you can’t take away a play from them because they’re following within the guise of the rules and they’re just better than everyone not doing it, even though statistically the bills had a higher success rate percentage-wise. But my point is it’s hard because these kids are doing exactly what they’re allowed to do, exactly what the rules are allowing them to do. Where I’m arguing is that the rule needs to be changed. You can’t just be flip-flopping every single year. That’s ridiculous. That is crazy to me. Now take the big guy, the big white dude out of Arkansas. He was with Calipari at Kentucky, then he went to Arkansas and followed him there and now he’s entering the transfer portal again. And what happens is these kids aren’t just entering the transfer portal to leave, right, to make more money. They’re also, they do that to put pressure on the university that they’re on already, to let them know like, "I’m looking for bigger money." So either offer me bigger money to stay or I’m going to go. This is college that we’re talking about. I know it’s your skill, it’s your life, it’s your, I get that. But what’s going to end up happening and we’re already starting to see it. College basketball in my opinion is better than the NBA because the NBA is not fun to watch anymore. And I hate saying that because I was such a big NBA fan. But the college game is just, I love the defense, the intensity, the things the players are playing for is different than it is in the NBA. And I’m worried that you’re going to start to see the trickle of the NBA’s game into the college game because of how the financial side of things are playing out. You know what I’m saying? I would hate for a player to sit out because he’s unhappy with a coach because he knows that next year he’s going to transfer and make more money. I feel like that’s where we’re headed. And these kids that are going to go to the NBA, they’re going to have another sense of entitlement. And it’s players like LeBron James that I believe instilled that in these, like said an example of how you can control a franchise. And I know he wasn’t the first one. He’s just the first one that comes to mind for me because he’s a big name and he had a lot of control of what the Lakers did. But I’m worried that you get him to the NBA and then what’s going to happen when they’re at the NBA level. They’re going to have that entitlement. They’re going to be journeymen, all these things. And even if they’re not journeymen, they’re going to be on a team because they’re going to be locked into a contract. And because of the mentality that they had in college where there’s no loyalty anymore, they’ll play for a franchise and say, "Oh, I got my quote unquote stage. I’ve accumulated my resume. Now it’s time to go and be part of a big three, a big four. Go make a super team." So these smaller team markets, it’s going to be hard for them to have their superstars. I’m an Orlando Magic fan. We don’t have the kind of money. I know there’s a salary cap, but we don’t have the aura of a big market like New York, LA. Why would anyone choose Boston, Miami? Why would anyone choose Orlando over those ones? Especially because let’s say Boston, a winning pedigree over there at their organization. Miami, great coach, winning pedigree. LA, it’s Los Angeles, like let’s be honest. You see what I’m saying? So it’s going to be hard for these smaller markets and these players are going to start to feel that. And they’re going to say, "I don’t want to be in these smaller markets. I want to be more noticed. I want to be more on TV by playing for these bigger markets." And they’re going to leave. There’s going to be absolutely no loyalty. And that makes me mad because the NBA game is now going to affect the college game. During every single year in college, entering the transfer portal, are you kidding me? Like that, I didn’t even see it coming. You know what I mean? I was so happy that they’re going to finally get their money, their bread. I didn’t realize that the rules were going to be written in a way where they could just constantly flip. And that sucks from a fan’s perspective. I not only enjoy, not only am I a part of like a mid-tier program here at UNM, but I am also a fan of March Madness. I’m a fan of the Loyola Merrimounds, the High Points, you know, these Cinderella teams, UC San Diego’s. Shout out. We just got Olin the new coach. But I’m fans of these. I love, I love the, for those guys who remember George Washington back in the day, VCU, you know, these, these programs that made such noise in the tournament. Oh, it was so fun. It was so fun. So much fun. March came around and you never knew what was going to happen. And now you’re starting to see all these stats. Oh, first time in, in since 60 or whatever that no one above 10 is, is in this far of the stage. Oh, first time since 2008 that all number one seeds are this and first time. And the, the announcers are shocked by that because I don’t know, it’s been so long. And when I saw that, I’m like, this is going to be the norm now. It’s going to be the norm because these players is going to be like Kentucky back in the day. You’re just going to have this super team of players because they’re going to go with NILs. And I started to see it as a problem when I saw the kids at North Carolina transferring now, like, man, North Carolina, the pedigree of that university, the history with Dean Smith and, and coach Williams and like, wow, you want to transfer? Where are you going to go? And then one of the kids from North Carolina ended up going to Michigan. And I understand Michigan also holds a certain type of pedigree and aura. I get that, but it’s not a university of North Carolina, baby. Come on. I know it’s ACC. And I know Michigan is, is a bigger, they’re in a bigger conference, a bigger basketball conference where you’re playing the Ohio States and the Providence and Purdue and all that. I get that. I get it. But at the same time, come on, baby, Duke. North Carolina, that is one of the greatest rivalries in college basketball, in my opinion. I love watching those games and you’re transferring out of there to go essentially to Michigan. And there’s just been crazy transfers. UNM has some transfers, like I said, UNLV, their guy just transferred to LSU. I told you that guy that was going to be going to his fourth school. You have these do not contact tags and transfer portal. I had to look that up because I didn’t know what that was. And for those of you guys that were in the same board I was, the do not contact tag that they have when they enter the transfer portal means that they pretty much already have a team in mind that they’re going, they’re going to, so they don’t want coaches to reach out to them. I don’t know why, like what the weight is before they can finally decide or say if that’s what they use. I haven’t dug that far, but I know that that’s, that’s pretty much the thing. But let’s go here. I’m not, let’s go to the top, the top transfers. So we got from Drake, Bennett Sturz, you guys know him from Drake. He’s going to Iowa. The second one on this list, and this is top. I looked up top. Okay. The second one on this list is Donovan Dent from the Lobos. He went from UNM to UCLA. Then you have Adrian Woolley. I don’t know what school that is. Let me see if I click on him if it tells me. He is from, it doesn’t say where he was playing, but he went to Louisville. And then Editing Thomas, the kid I was telling you from UNLV to LSU. Josh Dix from Iowa, unknown. Bryce Hopkins, one of the biggest players in this conference, went from Providence to St. John’s. Tucker DeVries from West Virginia to Indiana. McKinley from Virginia, unknown. Conwell from Xavier, transferring unknown. DeMarie from Georgia, unknown. Freeman from Iowa to Creighton. Sanon from ASU to St. John’s. Boedinga from Kansas, my J-hawks, unknown. Ogbin from Wyoming to BYU. Davidson, he’s actually not a bad player. Davidson, it was one of Nevada’s best players. He was literally, he would carry him whenever he played the Lobos. But he entered the transfer portal, so he’s Nevada, unknown. Renow from Indiana, unknown. Swain from Xavier, unknown. Guath from San Diego State, unknown. Bethea to the U, unknown. And I don’t want to keep going through it. I know it’s getting kind of repetitive, so let me just keep scrolling down. These are numbered, so I’m glad that they’re numbered so I can tell you at the end how many numbers they have. Gosh, there’s more transfers out of Kansas than I thought. I’m loading more. I’m on 150 and I’m loading more players. You see, this is getting ridiculous. All right, 194 so far. And to bring it full circle, I talked about how this is overshadowing the tournament itself. I mean, there was one kid who had said he was going into the transfer portal before they were even eliminated. I think he was from Alabama. Like, talk about a distraction. Why would you want to cause that kind of distraction at the wrong time? This is the time we need to be locked in focus and thinking about the tournament. That’s one of the rumors that’s going around about Petino, our UNM’s old coach, is that he was being contacted by schools during the tournament but it wasn’t taking away his focus. Of course, it’s taking away focus. Of course, it’s a distraction. You have your mind set somewhere else and I’m not blaming him. My point is that I can’t believe one that this is allowed to happen. You can’t contact. Like at the NFL level, when people are in the playoffs, they’re not looking to do interviews with other teams. They’ll do like a Skype interview. But it’s a quick four hour thing. One day it’s not something that lingers on and that’s the end of it. A lot of teams are like, you have to talk to them after we’re done. How it should be. I cannot believe that they allow it one. Two, I cannot believe that they’re doing that. That the player announced it before they even were eliminated. As soon as they get eliminated, boom, announcing, I’m entering the transfer portal. Again, to me, this is overshadowing the games themselves. What’s it named? Broheem? Broheem is a kid from Auburn. The kid looked like he freaking tore his ACL, dislocated his elbow, came back, hits a three, is rebounding. He was used as a rebounder to finish the game against Michigan State because that was the way they were going to get back in it. And now they’re saying that he may play in the final four. My point is, it’s overshadowing these great stories like this kid. What an amazing thing to come back and a lot of you can call it stupid, but you don’t know the situation. You don’t know if he would have been, like doctors told him, like, "Hey, we got him on adrenaline. He can finish this game, but he’s done for the rest of the tournament. He’s a senior." Let him finish it off, right, if he wants to. I have a good talk with him, but that’s what he decides to let him. So you don’t know the situation. That’s my point. But we got to stop with this, man. How do we get loyalty back? We got to implement rules in the middle of all this to where people or student athletes are getting money, but the transfer is not ridiculous. You’re bringing back the having to sit out a year, so lose eligibility for one year, or you have a one get out of jail free card. You pick the wrong university. Okay. You can transfer once. So now you get a redo at your bad decision when you were "still a child." So now as an adult, you get to choose, "Okay, now I should take this serious because I got to choose the right situation. Now that I’ve had one year under my belt, I know that I can’t play for a coach whose strategy or whose philosophy is insert right there." You know what I’m saying? So then you go based off, now you have your own questions to ask when you interview with coaches or you talk about different universities and say, "You know what? I feel like my play style fits." What is going on with you? How do you see this? How does this play out? And then you can get the answers you’re looking for. Choose the right situation and then you’re locked in. Or if you want to continue with the trends, find the place that pays you the most money and then switch there, but you have to stay there. You can’t just pick the place that pays you the most money, take their money for a year and then go somewhere else. It’s going to ruin the game. It’s going to ruin universities. People say it’s the way that the game is evolving. You have to evolve as a recruiter. It’s not though. It’s not because loyalty plays a big part. You can pay someone so much money. You’re telling me that these North Carolinas or these Villanovas or Xavier’s or Kansas or all these schools, you’re telling me they’re not treating their players, they’re not paying their players right? They are. The problem is that they just have all these options. In the NBA, at least you’re locked into a contract, so there’s some kind of contractual obligation for X amount of time for you before you can leave. So again, you’re presented with that and you have the choice to sign it. But if you sign it, you know that you’re locked in for X amount of time before you can look elsewhere. In the college game right now, that is not a thing. You can commit, leave the next year. Commit, leave the next year, and then the next year. Look at the kid out of Alabama who’s now going to be playing his fourth university in year four. So we got to get a lock on things. That’s my point. Again, I haven’t done sports in a while. I felt like there’s other things that need to be touched on other than sports, but this is one of those things that really grinds my gears and I know I’m not alone out there. So for those of you guys that kind of feel the same way I do, leave me a comment, shoot me a message. Now you can go on and you can actually shoot messages. It’s called Fan Mail through the podcast. So get on there. There’ll be a link. You can fan mail us and your likes, dislikes, whatever. You want to just get a message out. I’ll read those out. I actually want to read out one because I forgot to do this the last time. But I have one. Let me pull that up. I guess I should have had it locked and loaded, huh? All right. So yes, if you go onto the, what is it called? The podcast. If you say you go to Spotify, right? You click on the podcast. There’ll be an area on the episode itself where if you, or I’m sorry, not the episode. Yeah, the episode, it’ll say at the very top sentence of text and that is a new feature called Fan Mail. So we got a fan mail from Albuquerque. What it does is it tells, it just puts the last four of your phone number. So it doesn’t know, it doesn’t expose who you are, name, username, nothing. It just says, so this is from 9039. It says, this show is awesome. The different point of view, standpoints and fair analyzing on each one makes it interesting. So it shouts out to you. That was done in February. I’m sorry for getting to you so late. Appreciate any kind of commentary. So for those of you guys that want to reach out to us, do it through the fan mail. Send us that and I’ll give you guys a shout out here on the pod. But thank you guys for tuning in. Let me know your thoughts are as far as are you okay with the way the NIL is going? Should there be some more regulations on the rules and how they do it? Like I said, get at me. Appreciate all you guys and like I said, thank you. Till next time, I’m out. Peace.