Syracuse Basketball: NIL deals around the country are unsustainable, a bit absurd

Let me start off this column by adamantly stating that I'm glad Syracuse basketball players and their peers nationwide are able to make endorsement income from their names, images and likenesses.

Naturally, that extends to all other college sports, too.

However, some of the purported numbers that I'm seeing these days, assuming they are accurate and true, have gotten totally out of hand. They're unsustainable for the Orange and many other schools, from my perspective, and it's beginning to make me feel queasy about collegiate athletics.

That, in turn, breaks my heart, because my entire life, I've loved college basketball and college football more than any other sports out there, save for tennis.

For Syracuse basketball and its peers, the size of NIL deals appears to be getting too massive.

I came across this recent CBS Sports piece, noting that Baylor freshman point guard Robert Wright III, a former Syracuse basketball recruiting target from the Philadelphia area, was reportedly commanding several million dollars in NIL as he committed to fellow Big 12 Conference team BYU.

Make no mistake: I'm not taking any sort of shot here at Wright. He's getting paid, which I'm totally fine with, and if BYU wants to give him that amount of NIL, more power to the young man.

I just don't understand how the market can sustain itself year after year, especially assuming that schools, beginning in 2025-26, will be able to pay student-athletes directly for the use of their NIL, along with the continued involvement of third-party collectives.

Top analyst Jeff Goodman, in a recent post on X, said he polled around two-dozen high-major coaches regarding what players are likely getting paid. We're talking about several million dollars for the cream of the crop, and bench players are attracting $200,000 to $700,000.

Top national analyst Travis Branham of 247Sports, in a recent post on X, cited sources as telling him that at least eight teams in the 2025-26 college basketball season will possess rosters of at least $10 million. Carter Bahns, a writer at 247Sports, published a more detailed piece that stemmed in part from Branham's social media post.

National analysts noted that, yes, the programs at the top have substantially large NIL budgets, but what's also driving this is that more "mid-level" schools are seeing their annual NIL spending vastly increase. If everyone, so to speak, has more money, then college basketball players will want to take advantage of that, and I don't blame them one iota.

But to reiterate my earlier point: how will my beloved alma mater, Syracuse basketball, sustain this level of spending? SU Athletics has said that it plans to allot the maximum amount allowed in revenue-sharing in 2025-26, and it has also launched a three-year, $50 million fund-raising campaign to help out.

But these individual and team NIL budgets we're seeing across the country (again, assuming the reported amounts are accurate) have gotten out of hand. Some of my fellow 'Cuse fans say that NIL, among other things including the transfer portal's explosion, is ruining college sports.

I hope that they're wrong, but as time carries on, I fear more and more that they're right.