The conventional wisdom in college football is that if (or when) the NCAA grants student-athletes the right to profit off their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), the sport’s competitive balance will be destroyed.
Alabama, Clemson and a few other powers would just guarantee the biggest endorsement and advertising deals to the best recruits and thus sign them all. Everyone else would get scraps.
As it often is with college athletics, that conventional wisdom is completely wrong. NIL won't further tilt the playing field to the sport’s elite, it will actually flatten it out — a much-needed flattening, by the way.