Joel Klatt: College football has champagne problems

It is no secret that name, image, and likeness have completely changed the college football landscape. Some may think for the better, some may think for the worse, but college football analyst Joel Klatt recently made it clear that he believes NIL is well on its way to increasing the quality of the game in an unprecedented way.

“NIL has, I believe, created a golden age of college football and I believe we are at the dawn of that golden age. College football’s never been better. Interest has never been higher, all the problems we have in college football are champagne problems, which is amazing right?” Klatt asked. “Other sports would be dying to have the problems that college football have. We don’t have a lessening popularity, we don’t have to fight for viewership right? Like it’s there, people are interested, people love the sport and because of that there are some things that need to be tweaked.”

College football is in a good state as fan engagement, viewership, and revenue have consistently been on the rise. And now that student-athletes are able to cash in on some of that revenue, Klatt believes the level of talent and competition will only increase.

“Well listen, NIL is creating like the dawn of the golden age of college football, which is amazing partly because I think we’re going to have a deeper class of athlete in college basketball and college football more specifically and we’re starting to see that bear out,” Klatt said. “Next year we’re going to see the fruits of the NIL golden age, I believe next year we’re going to have as good of a college football season as we’ve had in a long time in part because we’ve got more depth of talent in college football.”

NIL as of late is predominantly discussed as it relates to recruiting, as NIL is now being used as a recruiting tool by coaches and programs across the country. But what’s not being talked about is how it relates to players who are on the fence about taking their talents to the NFL.

“Why do we have that? Well let me tell you. Because we have players that no longer have to go to the NFL, you see prior if you could get a third round grade or a fourth round grade even a fifth round grade it was like I gotta go. I gotta go and I gotta capitalize on that value right now because who knows what can happen I gotta start my clock, there was all these reasons for it,” Klatt explained. And guess what, nobody at least in my estimation, knocked the players for that. It was like we all got it, yes absolutely you have to go. Coaches would tell players you gotta go, you gotta get out of here. Well now it’s just a little bit different.”

It will definitely be interesting to see how NIL continues to impact upperclassmen deciding to declare for the NFL Draft or not. More football student-athletes deciding to stay in college and capitalize on NIL versus starting a professional career would definitely increase the level of talent seen on the field.

That paired with exciting eminent conference realignment changes and an expanded 12-team College Football Playoff model on the horizon definitely makes college football a tough industry to bet against moving forward.