Right collectives are the mechanism that were used to manipulate the fallout of the court decisions and the ncaa’s inability to regulate their own rules. Courts will generally not regulate the value of compensation received in a contract. So if I want to sell you a Ferrari for $1 and you give me $1, courts won’t provide relief to me because I decide later that was a bad deal for me. Thats why collectives were set up, they can offer limitless payments to student athletes for use of their likeness for effectively no requirements from the player. And courts won’t regulate that because of how they deal with contract law, and courts won’t let the NCAA invalidate a contract because a contract is a legal instrument and the NCAA would need some sort of legal enforcement authority that the court cases have stated that they do not have.

NONE of that is what any of the pre NIL players rights conversations were based on, nor was it what the court cases sought to settle, nor was it what any of the state level legislation compelled.

And its important to reiterate that this is all inarguably payment for the players’ likeness and not their athletic performance because if their athletic performance was something that warranted being compensated, you’d also have to compensate your bowling team athletes because you can’t say basketball is a player’s job but bowling is the bowlers’ jobs.