College football is turning into even more of a carnival where Name, Image and Likeness has fast yielded a new open free-agency frenzy.
The tone was set for a new world order on Wednesday’s National Signing Day when Deion Sanders mercilessly swiped the nation’s top recruit, Travis Hunter, from his own alma mater Florida State to his Jackson State football program.
Unverified rumors began to fly that Barstool Sports, where Sanders has been a broadcasting talent, paid Hunter a seven-figure NIL contract to help induce him to go to an HBCU in Mississippi, an unheard of destination for a recruit of Hunter’s caliber.
Bruce Feldman, who has covered the top echelons of college football for decades, called Hunter’s decision to flip from Florida State to Jackson State “unquestionably” the biggest recruiting stunner he’s ever seen.
Sanders called his shot on Tuesday night, appearing on Barstool Sports’ “Unnecessary Roughness” football show. Wearing a Barstool hat, he told co-hosts Dave Portnoy, Dan Katz and Kayce Smith that he was going to “shock the country.” He delivered in spades.
Rumors have been flying on social media that Barstool did a seven-figure NIL deal with Hunter to seal the deal for Sanders. A relatively obscure investing Twitter account called BeanInvest got more than 1,000 retweets in purporting to break this news.
Asked by The Post if this rumor is accurate, Portnoy, Barstool’s founder, said, “No comment.”
Citing a source close to the Jackson State program, Front Office Sports reported that the rumor Barstool has a NIL deal with Hunter is “FALSE.” Khari Thompson, a Jackson State beat writer for the Clarion Ledger, also reported the Hunter-Barstool rumor is “not true.”
Yet, Portnoy appears to be acting as if the rumors are true. “#barstoolmillions #nil,” he tweeted.
He also responded to a Twitter user complaining about Barstool doing a multi-million dollar NIL deal with a gif of Mr. Krabs from “SpongeBob SquarePants” playing a tiny violin with no sympathy.
Barstool does have a preexisting NIL program. One could see why garnering the attention of signing Hunter to an endorsement deal would be a worthwhile endeavor for them. The nation’s top recruit paired with the charisma of Sanders is a marketable formula.
The rules for NIL are very murky. The schools technically aren’t allowed to directly orchestrate payments to players. Everything is supposed to be third party. Just this past week, the football programs at Miami and BYU came under NCAA investigation for potentially handling these deals improperly.
No reasonable human thinks that these ultra-competitive coaches are going to have one iota of respect for the letters of this law, but they’re going to have to walk a tightrope to avoid being implicated in anything that violates the rules.
Unsurprisingly, the old guard in college football hates the new NIL wild west. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney, who’s won two national championships, lamented that there are about 2,000 college football players in the transfer portal and said, “There’s so much tampering going on and so many adults manipulating young people.”
“Every scholarship offensive lineman at Texas will get $50,000/yr with new NIL deal,” former Auburn coach Gene Chizik tweeted. “Not to mention the 200,000 education. Americans struggle finding $50,000 jobs to feed their children. Next it’s 100,000/player with no end in sight. Flawed system!!!! Most $$ wins!”
There is a chance, though, that NIL could actually better democratize college football, which in recent years has become increasingly oligopolistic. If Jackson State — Jackson State! — can land the top recruit in the country, perhaps this will all mark a sea change.