Eric Mac Lain discusses takeaways on NIL from ACC meetings

Eric Mac Lain left the recent ACC spring meetings regarding NIL with two major takeaways. The former Clemson offensive lineman turned ACC Network analyst joined McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning on Friday, where he revealed what those revelations were.

Firstly, Mac Lain said there is a widespread belief among conference leaders that things won’t be fixed until there is federal legislation. Many believe that there needs to be a salary cap in place similar to that of the NFL, something that Alabama coach Nick Saban has mentioned before.

“The biggest thing that everybody seemed to talk about is that there has to be guardrails in place,” Mac Lain said. “There needs to be rules. There needs to be things that everyone is following. Ultimately to me, what that means is federal (legislation) and congress and all this other stuff is going to have to be involved. It’s going to have to be an overarching, massive sweep of guidelines and rules.

“…At the end of the day, it can’t be the NCAA. They’re just gonna get sued and quite frankly, I don’t think they realistically want to play with this. I think it’s gonna come down to legislation and it’s gonna have to have that federal support. When you look at it, everybody wants to sit here and say, ‘Free market.’ (But) free markets have rules at the end of the day. The NFL I think is the greatest model in the world and guess what? There’s a salary cap. There’s things that happen where it’s not just unlimited resources, unlimited money and unlimited whatever. There has to be rules. I think everybody can understand that. If I go outside right now and drive down the street, there’s a 45 mile an hour speed limit that I have to follow the rules.”

Things are moving in the right direction after SEC commissioner Greg Sankey and Pac-12 commissioner George Kliavkoff met with US Senators last week to discuss federal NIL legislation. However, according to ESPN’s Paul Finebaum, it could still be a while before any of that comes to fruition.

Tampering was the other key issue that Mac Lain mentioned ACC leaders were concerned about in regards to the NIL. The conference found itself at the forefront of that issue after Pittsburgh receiver and 2021 Biletnikoff winner Jordan Addison entered his name in the transfer portal. Rumors swirled of an NIL deal waiting for him if he heads to USC, prompting Pitt coach Pat Narduzzi to accuse USC and coach Lincoln Riley of tampering.

When addressing this issue, Mac Lain noted how difficult it could ultimately be to prove, likening the situation to that of another pro league — the NBA.

“The second thing that was brought up is just the tampering piece,” Mac Lain said. “How do you identify it? How do you prove it? How do you punish it? At the end of the day, it’s something that’s gonna be very difficult. We’ve seen it at the NBA level, where of course it’s against the rules and there’s fines and punishments and all that, but it still happens. It’s still something that doesn’t always get punished. So what does it all look like? How do we police it? How do we manage it?

“At the end of the day, even my biggest thing is, I love this world that we’re in. I think it’s a great space. Young men and women more than deserve to make money off of their name. But I have a problem when it’s in recruiting and I have a problem with the tampering where someone who is not even in the portal can be contacted via whoever and say, ‘Hey we’ve got all this money. Come on over.’ Then they say, ‘Yeah, maybe I need to do that.’ Those are my two biggest things and what comes from it will be very interesting to see.”