BenFred: NCAA scare tactics shouldn't stop Mizzou (and others) from flexing state's NIL strength

Figureheads are wagging fingers.
Threatening language has reached a crescendo.
There was once a time when old Mizzou would have been shaking in its black-and-gold boots. Perhaps those times have changed. It’s overdue.
Here’s my advice to Mizzou and any other Missouri-based programs that are hearing breathless warnings about what could happen if they take full advantage of one of the most advantageous name, image and likeness rules in the nation: Keep pushing. Don’t give an inch. Take another foot instead. If you later find yourself in a spot where you have to ask for forgiveness, don’t ask for forgiveness. Lawyer up and fight back instead.
Welcome to the new era, folks. It’s time.
The NCAA, losing its teeth by the day, can barely enforce the rules it has on the books. Its scant guidelines about NIL are few and far between. New NCAA president Charlie Baker has admitted his organization made a mistake by initially wanting little to do with restricting NIL before it began. That left states to go to work figuring out where they wanted to draw their own lines, many of which have crossed over minimal NCAA guidelines. Now the NCAA, trying to make up ground, keeps asking Congress to override state rules with a federally mandated set of regulations, in large part because the NCAA needs Congress to do what it knows it can’t.
“I think there were too many people in college sports who thought no rules would work really well for them,” NCAA president Baker recently told USA Today. “What everybody’s discovered is no rules, no transparency, no accountability, no framework doesn’t work well for anybody. And that’s one of the reasons why I think it’s possible that Congress may be interested in doing something about this, because you do have a situation where it’s basically impossible to find anybody — student athletes, families, coaches, ADs, college presidents, anybody who thinks the current system is working.”
Objection, Mr. President.
Programs in Missouri seem to like their state’s NIL law just fine. In-state football prospects considering the Tigers, ones who so often find reasons to rush elsewhere, seem to be giving the Tigers a longer look than usual. It was the NCAA, remember, that initially asked states to deal with this. And it seems to me that the people complaining now tend to be those in states that don’t have proactive NIL laws.
Starting at this month’s end, programs like Mizzou (and SLU and Lindenwood) can start connecting athletes with NIL perks as soon as the players sign binding scholarship paperwork. Yes, even before they start college classes or participate in a single practice, they can collect NIL cash. The new law, signed by Gov. Mike Parson last month, does loads of other things, too. Coaches and athletics officials can be more heavily involved in NIL arrangements. Athletes can earn NIL money to promote events they participate in. Perhaps most importantly, the bill includes language that attempts to protect programs following the new state law from NCAA limitations that could show up later.
If all of this makes your head spin, understood.
But the amateurism sham of college sports is eroding beneath our feet. Continued wailing about it is hard to defend as universities chase bigger paydays through unchecked conference realignment and gambling partnerships, and as coaches and athletics directors and presidents make more and more millions every year. This NIL movement could eventually turn into the bridge that results in college athletes being properly labeled as university employees who are integral components to the big money machine’s continued churn. At its core, NIL is just money laundering. Let’s call it what it is. It pays the athletes for anything but playing their sports, because for now it’s easier to address their undeniable value that way than by tearing the whole thing down and starting anew. Maybe that cliff comes soon.
For now, it’s the NIL era instead.
And for now, there is real uncertainty that the NCAA can strengthen its limited NIL rules and enforce the ones it has.
Former NCAA president Mark Emmert knew it. Baker’s bravado isn’t rattling many. If the NIL’s wild west is regulated more strictly through NCAA or federal oversight later, then Missouri and other out-in-front NIL states will have a decision to make. Lawyer up and fight, or scale things back. But until that decision has to be made, because it may never have to be made, the smart thing to do is to make hay while the water is murky.
With the stroke of a pen, Gov. Parson gave the (Lindenwood) Lions, (Missouri) Tigers and (Missouri State) Bears and others a gift. He is scheduled to make an appearance at Faurot Field on Tuesday for the ceremonial signing. Flex the incoming NIL power while you can, coaches, players and fans.
One last thing to consider.
Mizzou, especially, can recall how trying to please the NCAA works out.
Anyone in need of a refresh can just call up former MU athletics director Jim Sterk. He’s the AD at his alma mater, Western Washington University, these days. Something he said before he left should still be heavy on Missouri’s mind.
It was back in 2019 when Sterk, a lifelong NCAA loyalist, could not believe the punishment the NCAA handed down after Mizzou self-reported academic misconduct violations and proactively punished itself before bowing down to the NCAA’s enforcement process.
Still, Mizzou was rocked and shocked by the inclusion of cross-sport postseason bans officials did not see coming.
Mississippi State got off a lot easier soon after despite similar violations.
The biggest difference was Mississippi State got the benefit of using a new resolution process that started just weeks before Mizzou’s heavy punishment was announced.
The Tigers were told the NCAA couldn’t go back in time, and that it had to enforce the rules as they were written at the time.
Good to know.
Keep that in mind when the NCAA is proving it needs Congress to set NIL rules it can’t really create and enforce on its own. It had its chance to attempt to set strong NIL rules. It passed and now it’s playing from behind.
And if one day you are a school that gets caught on the wrong side of a blurry NIL line, remember the playbook so many programs have used to beat the NCAA time and time again in recent years. Admit nothing. Lawyer up. Fight.
Pay to play isn’t what college sports is speeding toward. It’s here. It’s happening. It’s in the best interest of programs in states with lenient NIL laws to flex their newfound strength unless it is made quite clear they can’t.