[TrumpCard]

just maybe something might be done to try to curb what's going on.

Who or what entity might step in? The Supreme Court effectively told the NCAA to keep their hands off of NIL matters. "In a 9–0 unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision that NCAA restrictions on 'education-related benefits' for college athletes violated antitrust law."

Without action from Congress to grant them an anti-trust exemption, what role can the NCAA play?

The only other governing bodies in college sports are the conferences. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if they might also be constrained by the Supreme Court ruling. But good luck trying to get all of the conferences to agree on anything anyway.

I think this is right on both counts.  The Supreme Court has spoken (correctly, IMHO).  The NCAA rules were an illegal restraint on trade and student athletes have been deprived of many millions of dollars in income.  The law and fairness required the development of a new system that would fairly compensate student athletes.  Lots of schools are upset over this and will field worse athletic teams.  Stanford is high on the list of losing schools.  Tough.  Stanford had been benefitting from NCAA rules that screwed athletes and fielded good athletic teams because it could offer something (a 200k education) when other schools were prohibited from offering other benefits.  That racket is over.  As a Stanford fan, I'm disappointed, but so be it.

But the second part of your post is correct too.  Congress can change the free-for-all that we see today if it wants to do so.  Since the schools that are winning are the flagship schools from like 10 states, there probably are a lot of members of Congress whose constituencies would like a different system.  The new system might find a balance that allows the NCAA to remain competitve with more schools landing top recruits, but avoid the extreme unfairness of the old system.  I'm sure people are working very hard to find a balance like that.  I don't know what it would be, but I'm open to alternatives that reduce the feeling of sliminess that pervades the current NIL regime.

[TrumpCard]

just maybe something might be done to try to curb what's going on.

Who or what entity might step in? The Supreme Court effectively told the NCAA to keep their hands off of NIL matters. "In a 9–0 unanimous decision, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's decision that NCAA restrictions on 'education-related benefits' for college athletes violated antitrust law."

Without action from Congress to grant them an anti-trust exemption, what role can the NCAA play?

The only other governing bodies in college sports are the conferences. I'm not a lawyer so I don't know if they might also be constrained by the Supreme Court ruling. But good luck trying to get all of the conferences to agree on anything anyway.

I think this is right on both counts.  The Supreme Court has spoken (correctly, IMHO).  The NCAA rules were an illegal restraint on trade and student athletes have been deprived of many millions of dollars in income.  The law and fairness required the development of a new system that would fairly compensate student athletes.  Lots of schools are upset over this and will field worse athletic teams.  Stanford is high on the list of losing schools.  Tough.  Stanford had been benefitting from NCAA rules that screwed athletes and fielded good athletic teams because it could offer something (a 200k education) when other schools were prohibited from offering other benefits.  That racket is over.  As a Stanford fan, I'm disappointed, but so be it.

But the second part of your post is correct too.  Congress can change the free-for-all that we see today if it wants to do so.  Since the schools that are winning are the flagship schools from like 10 states, there probably are a lot of members of Congress whose constituencies would like a different system.  The new system might find a balance that allows the NCAA to remain competitve with more schools landing top recruits, but avoid the extreme unfairness of the old system.  I'm sure people are working very hard to find a balance like that.  I don't know what it would be, but I'm open to alternatives that reduce the feeling of sliminess that pervades the current NIL regime.