Jay Bilas responds to Charlie Baker statement on NIL: 'The free market works for everyone else'

After multiple NIL-related storylines around college football this week, NCAA president Charlie Baker released a statement on where the landscape stands. That generated a landscape from ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, who reiterated his call to let the free market work.

The biggest topic in college sports over the last few days was the situation at UNLV. Quarterback Matthew Sluka announced he was taking a redshirt after the 3-0 start due to representations that “were not upheld” after he enrolled. On3’s Pete Nakos confirmed Sluka was verbally promised a $100,000 NIL deal, but only received a $3,000 relocation fee.

While Baker didn’t directly address Sluka’s situation, his statement addressed the “evidence of dysfunction” around the NIL landscape. Bilas – who studied law at Duke and is a practicing attorney in North Carolina – pointed out the need to let the free market play out and do away with the NCAA’s current rules.

“If the NCAA wants to protect athletes, remove all restrictions on schools paying players directly,” Bilas wrote on X Friday night. “It’s not that hard. Coaches and administrators have contracts, and aren’t reliant on third party compensation while just pretending it’s not the school paying. The free market works for everyone else, it will work for athletes.”

Since NIL came to be in 2021, calls started for “guardrails” around the rules. Sluka’s situation amplified those as coaches such as Brian Kelly and Kirby Smart pointed out the fact it can keep happening under the current rules.

“I can tell you that I don’t think it’ll be the last and the way we’re moving into this abyss of unknown, and I’m talking about fiscal responsibility, financial commitments, financial promises, people sometimes make promises, and I know I’ve come across it in our recruiting that they can’t keep and there’s no — sometimes there’s no rebuttal for the athlete,” Smart said.

“Sometimes there’s no rebuttal for the athletic department or the collective or whoever’s involved. And it’s sad that there’s not just a better, a way to police it better. Because it’s unfortunate and when — I’m not suggesting UNLV made promises they can’t keep. I’m not saying that. I don’t know that situation. I want to be clear on that.”

Charlie Baker: NCAA continues to call on Congress for national NIL help

Charlie Baker’s statement – also posted to X on Friday – came after attorneys submitted a revision to the House v. NCAA settlement. In a hearing last month, judge Claudia Wilken told them to go “back to the drawing board,” specifically as it relates to boosters and NIL collectives.

The new settlement changed the definition of a booster, limiting it to a “narrower group of entities and individuals closely affiliated with the schools.” Commercial parties such as shoe companies and people who have given $50,000 to a school will be exempt from NIL enforcement.

If the settlement is not approved, the NCAA will head to trial and could face over $20 billion in back damages. Baker went on to write that the NCAA continues to lobby Congress for national NIL guidelines – something for which he and others have lobbied since 2022.

“While we’d love to see these resources used to protect student-athletes in every NIL deal, it’s not something the NCAA has the authority to mandate,” Baker wrote. “In the meantime, we’re continuing to advocate for Congress to create national NIL guidelines that will protect student-athletes from exploitation, including the use of standard contracts.”

Pete Nakos contributed.