As college football adapts to the revenue share model in light of the House settlement’s approval, some head coaches like Colorado’s Deion Sanders have called for a market cap to help level the playing field in the Name, Image and Likeness space.
“I wish there was a cap,” Sanders said Wednesday at Big 12 Media Days. “You know, like, the top-of-the-line player makes this, and if you’re not that type of guy, you know you’re not going to make that. That’s what the NFL does. So, the problem is you got a guy that’s not that darn good, but he could go to another school and give him a half a million dollars. And you can’t compete with that.”
Schools can share up to $20.5 million directly to student athletes this year. However, that cap does not include third-party NIL deals totaling at least $600, which must be cleared by the NIL Go clearinghouse. Programs can still work with outside partners and collectives to add to their budgets.
ESPN analyst and longtime SEC pundit Paul Finebaum responded to Sanders’ plea, claiming that there are bigger fish to fry among college football’s “many issues.”
“Well, he’s not the only one who would like to put a cap on it,” Finebaum said on ESPN’s “Get Up.” “But, right now, there’s so many issues in college football that getting to a cap, it may happen one day, but I think they need to solve some more basic problems first. I mean, I just love Deion for a lot of reasons, but especially how he just changes the narrative depending on who is on his team.”
Finebaum is referring to former Colorado stars Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders, who followed Deion Sanders from Jackson State before entering the NFL ranks after two seasons with the Buffaloes.
Hunter and Sanders were among the most recognizable stars in the game and held lofty NIL valuations.
“I mean, those two guys that he had last year, Shedeur and Travis, could have left and broken everybody’s bank and would have had he not had that hold over them.” Finebaum said. “So, I just think Deion needs to stick to coaching football. Let the college football leaders screw up the game the way they have already.”
