NCAA to permit athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness

This is quite possibly one of the biggest stories to come out of the NCAA in my lifetime.  I can't quite remember them doing something that will have this much impact on college programs and the athletes that participate in them.  

For years, it has been an ongoing debate about whether or not college athletes should be able to make money off their own talent.  There is no doubt that it was happening to some extent behind closed doors.  

It is a fair guess we have all heard at one point or another about a college or program getting in trouble with the NCAA because student athletes were given a meal or some material good for being on their team.  

It has been an art form over the years for universities to find creative ways to work within the rules and guidelines established by the NCAA.  Many institutions actually have a compliance officer whose singular job is to make sure the athletes and the college are adhering to said rules.

In those cases where we do hear about them being broken, punishments can run the gamut from disqualification, expulsion, stripped titles, and in severe cases, "the nuclear option".

There is definitely going to be a lot of 'i' dotting and 't' crossing that has to be done before many of these rules are finally in place.  Since it is the NCAA I have no doubt it will be more highly regulated than the most regulated thing you can imagine.  

Likewise, I am sure the NCAA will have their hands in the pot of pretty much every deal that goes down.  It will be interesting to see if the number of athletes who move on to professional careers drops now that they have made their fortune in college.  

It will also be interesting to see how many people continue to skip college to go right to the professional level.  This happens a lot in the NBA.  Will the possibility of making money at the college level give them more incentive to play for a Division I school?

I feel the future for all of this is very unclear, but it is definitely something that is going to have a wide reaching impact through college sports as we know it.

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