December 5th became a shocking day for football fans across the country, and especially in the state of Iowa, as Matt Campbell, the head coach of the Iowa State University football team, announced his departure from the school. Unfortunately, devastating staffing and roster changes like this one are looking to become a more common occurrence as the role of money in college sports become more inescapable.

Up until the fall of 2019, college sports had been all for the love of the game. Players were prohibited from accepting endorsements, appearing in advertisements, or raking in any money from their athletic career. California was the first state to repeal these laws when they allowed NCAA athletes to accept endorsements in September of 2019.

Shortly after this legislation was passed, many college athletes pushed the NCAA to make California’s decision applicable across the nation. Despite lots of backlash and hesitation, the NCAA finally lifted NIL (name, image, and likeness) restrictions in 2021, allowing athletes full power to make hefty sums of money off their athletic ability.

Allowing student athletes to profit from their endeavors will naturally grant them many new opportunities. The dedication that college sports require is similar or more intensive than a full time job, so it makes sense that athletes should be paid for their work.

Additionally, according to NFLoperations.com, only 1.6% of all college football players will go on to play professionally. NIL money gives these players a chance to make their living off of something they are passionate about, even if they are unable to continue playing after college.

Just as quickly as NIL money is changing the lives of players, it is also tearing down the foundations college sports were built upon.

The NCAA transfer portal was created in 2018 as a way to make transitioning between schools easier and more transparent for student athletes. There is a reason that the transfer portal saw a surge in popularity once the NIL restrictions were lifted, and that reason was clearly money.

Instead of having loyalty to one school or one team, players are quick to jump in the transfer portal at the thin, material promise of a brand deal or a sponsorship. When deals like this are so accessible, it is easy for players to shoot for quick monetary satisfaction rather than taking the time to build a human connection with a team, the reason sports were popularized in the first place.

Iowa State is just one of the schools that has been affected by this recent shift in the college sports scene. When Matt Campbell came to Iowa State, he revolutionized their football program. He quickly became the winningest coach in school history, and led the team to seven bowl games and numerous top-25 rankings.

This is the reason Campbell’s transfer to Penn State University is so devastating for fans. Not only did the program lose its head coach, but it also lost many assistant coaches and the majority of its roster. While not all of these departures were solely driven by money, it’s not just a coincidence that Penn State’s NIL budget is $25 million higher than Iowa State’s.

It’s clear that the current structure of the NCAA isn’t built to keep up with the influx of players and coaches transferring between schools. Bowl games and the college football playoff have been well loved traditions since the 1920’s, but they haven’t been the same in recent years.

It is a strict NCAA rule that once a player or coach enters the transfer portal, they are ineligible to compete in a bowl or playoff game. Numerous schools, including Iowa State, have pulled out of their bowl games this year due to a shortage of players or an incomplete coaching staff. Oppositely, Ole Miss made the college football playoff, but competed with a different head coach than they had during the regular season due to transfer portal issues.

This isn’t fun for players who spent all season dedicating themselves to making it to the post season or fans hoping to root for their team one more time.

While schools like Iowa State have been negatively impacted by the transfer portal and lift of NIL restrictions, schools outside of the main power conferences are being hit the hardest when they were already down.

Smaller schools have been affected by the inequality gap in college sports for years. According to the University of Southern California, schools in the SEC (one of the main four power conferences) averaged $155.4 million more in sports related revenue than schools in the MEAC, a smaller conference with less wide of an audience. This means SEC schools make 432% more revenue than MEAC schools.

If these schools were already unable to keep up, how will they survive with NIL money in the picture? This will only widen the inequality gap as small schools continuously lose players to the transfer portal and struggle to maintain a team.

NIL money has started to spiral and has impacted college sports in completely different ways than it was ever intended to. Football has seemingly changed more in the past three or four years than it has in the twenty or thirty years before that, undoubtedly due to the introduction of money into the sport.

College football certainly isn’t going away any time soon, but how much more can it adapt before the sport loses the integrity it was founded on?