Name, Image, Likeness needs to be redefined. There are living professional athletes who were responsible for over time the rise of the NBA, NFL and MLB who never got a cut of the bigger pie and lived on awful salaries for years.
There is no discernible way to define how much money a single athlete "makes" for the University. The University and NCAA is also a "stage" for the athlete to propel their own popularity (name, image, likeness) in an effort to promote that popularity at the next level, should they turn professional.
UK didn't get a cut of Antoine Walker's NBA salary after he left UK without NIL money. Who's to say what he would have been if he went to Utah Valley State to play basketball?
The NCAA and Universities weren't holding a gun to any player's head saying you have to play here or die. They were offered a scholarship and perks in return to play a game on a court, field, pool, etc. The University in turn ran an institution.
The guys who are mostly responsible driving revenue (the stars) get theirs at the next level.
Maybe the NCAA should look to professional sports to get theirs. Everytime we flip a game on CBS and we hear Billy Bob went to "The Ohio State University", maybe they should have their hand out.
It is all nonsense and complaining by a bunch of entitled cry babies. If they didn't want to play for the scholarship they could have kept playing in their back yard or any local YMCA....or gone overseas and played a sport....or played in the US professionally if allowed.
I'm not even against NIL. I have no problem with it. The point is not that, the point is these players were compensated in the form of education and future income earning potential. Period. They agreed to it, just like I agree to my compensation with my employer.
Back in the 80s, or 90s, or 2000s, or whenever, if you were a top athlete growing up in the US the only way to play in the NBA or NFL was to go to college unless you were someone like Kobe Bryant or Lebron and for a brief window you could go straight professional. The entire formation of the NCAA, however, was nonsense. You didn’t really have a “choice” as a HS kid of whether you could skip college or not in pursuit of being a professional athlete. There was a book I read one time called “The cartel: rise of the NCAA” that was really good. The whole thing was a sham. And all the Universities had to do was agree to give Ed Obannen and his peers 700 dollars each and they were so insanely greedy they said no and that’s when the lawsuits happened. It’s all garbage. That’s why the NCAA gets laughed out of court anytime a lawsuit pops up, even by conservative judges. Universities are one of the most corrupt, money hungry, shady institutions we have in this day. You know my history with universities, but they are so predatory and shady it’s ridiculous. They brought this all on themselves - and even now as they complain they’re still printing money.