[M T]

Baez87, thanks for a level-headed call for ideas.

I don't claim that these are in any way thought out, but just putting these out as strawmen to encourage discussion.  Others have mentioned these before.

1) You used the term "legal".  Congress can make many things legal.  I'd think access to college and athletics is something they might engage.  I don't know the demographics of the full set of college athletic scholarship recipients, but athletics is one way someone go to college that might not otherwise (because of financial need or failure to make the grades).  How Congress might wade into this is uncertain.  One way is to make sure NIL payments are not considered tax deductible, and receipt of NIL money is taxed.  After all, it is payment for services (just as paying Taylor Swift to promote a product) and has nothing to do with education.  That will discourage money otherwise donated ("tax free") to colleges to be paid directly as NIL.

2) Another way Congress could act is to give special status to the NCAA or other collegiate sports governing body.  AIUI, MLB has a special status.  This could potentially allow the NCAA to set rules that they might not attempt now due to concerns about the legality of such rules.  Exactly what the NCAA might do is not clear to me.  

• "Salary cap"?   What we are starting to see smacks of rich teams (NYY-style) buying up the best players, leaving other teams as farm clubs (but they lose money developing players, and don't get paid for it).   The difficulty is in identifying & categorizing 3rd party payments to players (the NCAA has been trying to control that for decades, until NIL).
  
• "Sit out a year"?  Frankly, I don't understand why the NCAA isn't requiring the sit-out-a-year rule. It would seem to be a major deterrent to teams transferring in players.  It practically guarantees players won't leave after their Junior year.  (Grad transfers (Iriafen, Madeline Gates) probably should be allowed to play if they have not exhausted their 4 years of eligibility already.) 
  
• Different leagues of Haves and Have-Nots.
  
• Team limits on number of players in a class (where Grad Student is a class).  As I thought of when Gates came to Stanford, a team could have no undergraduates and depend entirely on pulling upperclass/grad transfers in.
  
• Personally, I'd work at splitting up super conferences.  IMO, this is being used to squeeze out other schools from TV money.
  
• Put limits on travel time during the school year, with a process for granting exceptions.  Women's Field Hockey out west may need to travel to the East Coast to find sufficient teams to play; ditto for WWP in Michigan traveling to California.  But there is no reason that BB and FB players need to play 5 or more games on the other coast, missing classes and student life. 
  
• Consider "taxing" TV money proceeds and spreading that money more widely.  If Alabama - Auburn FB game pulls in big money, maybe some of that should be distributed to the FB program at Louisiana A&M (intentionally a no-name school -- I hope I didn't accidentally choose a real school).  And for that matter, to the WFH program there as well.  (Actually, I'm liking this approach a lot.)
  
• As mentioned by Baez87 (and others, I suspect), contracts between the student and the school.  I don't particularly mind the potential of buy-out by the NIL group paying the student they are hiring away.  But this has to be thought out carefully.  A student-athlete that wants to go play elsewhere may well claim that the coach/admin/team  at the school they are transferring out of were abusive (etc) and threaten to sue.  The school would probably drop the payment requirement to avoid such a potential ugly proceeding even if it were baseless.
  

Enough strawmen for me for now.

[M T]

Baez87, thanks for a level-headed call for ideas.

I don't claim that these are in any way thought out, but just putting these out as strawmen to encourage discussion.  Others have mentioned these before.

1) You used the term "legal".  Congress can make many things legal.  I'd think access to college and athletics is something they might engage.  I don't know the demographics of the full set of college athletic scholarship recipients, but athletics is one way someone go to college that might not otherwise (because of financial need or failure to make the grades).  How Congress might wade into this is uncertain.  One way is to make sure NIL payments are not considered tax deductible, and receipt of NIL money is taxed.  After all, it is payment for services (just as paying Taylor Swift to promote a product) and has nothing to do with education.  That will discourage money otherwise donated ("tax free") to colleges to be paid directly as NIL.

2) Another way Congress could act is to give special status to the NCAA or other collegiate sports governing body.  AIUI, MLB has a special status.  This could potentially allow the NCAA to set rules that they might not attempt now due to concerns about the legality of such rules.  Exactly what the NCAA might do is not clear to me.  

• "Salary cap"?   What we are starting to see smacks of rich teams (NYY-style) buying up the best players, leaving other teams as farm clubs (but they lose money developing players, and don't get paid for it).   The difficulty is in identifying & categorizing 3rd party payments to players (the NCAA has been trying to control that for decades, until NIL).
  
• "Sit out a year"?  Frankly, I don't understand why the NCAA isn't requiring the sit-out-a-year rule. It would seem to be a major deterrent to teams transferring in players.  It practically guarantees players won't leave after their Junior year.  (Grad transfers (Iriafen, Madeline Gates) probably should be allowed to play if they have not exhausted their 4 years of eligibility already.) 
  
• Different leagues of Haves and Have-Nots.
  
• Team limits on number of players in a class (where Grad Student is a class).  As I thought of when Gates came to Stanford, a team could have no undergraduates and depend entirely on pulling upperclass/grad transfers in.
  
• Personally, I'd work at splitting up super conferences.  IMO, this is being used to squeeze out other schools from TV money.
  
• Put limits on travel time during the school year, with a process for granting exceptions.  Women's Field Hockey out west may need to travel to the East Coast to find sufficient teams to play; ditto for WWP in Michigan traveling to California.  But there is no reason that BB and FB players need to play 5 or more games on the other coast, missing classes and student life. 
  
• Consider "taxing" TV money proceeds and spreading that money more widely.  If Alabama - Auburn FB game pulls in big money, maybe some of that should be distributed to the FB program at Louisiana A&M (intentionally a no-name school -- I hope I didn't accidentally choose a real school).  And for that matter, to the WFH program there as well.  (Actually, I'm liking this approach a lot.)
  
• As mentioned by Baez87 (and others, I suspect), contracts between the student and the school.  I don't particularly mind the potential of buy-out by the NIL group paying the student they are hiring away.  But this has to be thought out carefully.  A student-athlete that wants to go play elsewhere may well claim that the coach/admin/team  at the school they are transferring out of were abusive (etc) and threaten to sue.  The school would probably drop the payment requirement to avoid such a potential ugly proceeding even if it were baseless.
  

Enough strawmen for me for now.