Jay Bilas assesses current NIL landscape, calls on NCAA to allow players to sign contracts

As the college basketball season rolls along – and with the college football offseason in its second month – the conversation continues about how the NIL space is evolving. Multiple head coaches have left their programs for assistant positions at either the NFL or college level, leading to questions about the challenges of roster management and player retention.

To ESPN college basketball analyst Jay Bilas, there’s a way to fix it. He argued the NCAA needs to deem athletes as employees and allow them to sign contracts. If that happens, there are ways to make sure they don’t jump into the transfer portal, such as implementing a buyout.

“If the NCAA wants to fix this, they can fix it tomorrow,” Bilas said Tuesday on The Rich Eisen Show. “All they have to do is take off all restrictions for schools paying their athletes and they would sign them to contracts, just like they do coaches and administrators and all that. It’s really not that difficult.”

The NCAA got dealt a big blow on that front, though. Earlier this month, the National Labor Relations Board deemed Dartmouth men’s basketball players as employees. That allowed the team to schedule a vote to unionize, and it could be the first step toward an employment model in college athletics.

According to Bilas, the NCAA instead wants to prioritize its amateurism model while allowing athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness. He also noted the changing landscape, especially as some see NIL turning into pay-for-play. It’s going exactly how Bilas thought it would go.

“We’re trying to walk the line of maintaining amateurism, which is dead,” said Bilas, who graduated from Duke law school in 1992. “And then, we’re complaining about NIL, it’s not what we thought it was going to be. What did they think was going to happen? I knew this was going to happen. … The schools want to pay the players. They want to have the best players, and they’re going to do what it takes to get them and they’re going to compete in the marketplace to do it. Once players are allowed to be paid in this unilateral wage restriction that the NCAA is using – which is violative of federal antitrust law – things will normalize and we won’t have to worry about the transfer portal.

“You sign a player to a contract, put a buyout in it, put conditions on it that are bargained between the player and the institution, it won’t be a problem anymore. Just like they don’t worry about coaches transferring from one school to another. They pay their buyout, it’s orderly. And everybody knows what the market is. It’s just not that big of a deal.”

Why Jay Bilas isn’t worried about college coaches leaving for the pros

Amid a crazy coaching carousel, one of the more surprising moves came from Boston College coach Jeff Hafley. He left the Eagles to become the Green Bay Packers’ defensive coordinator, and ESPN reported roster retention as a factor in his decision.

Then, another Power Conference coach moved back to the assistant level as UCLA head coach Chip Kelly left to become Ohio State’s offensive coordinator – after going through some NFL interviews. Multiple Group of 5 head coaches also stepped down to become assistants again. Georgia State’s Shawn Elliott became the latest last week as he became South Carolina’s tight ends coach.

When it comes to those types of moves and if others will follow Hafley’s example by going to the pros, Jay Bilas argued coaches have to adapt to the landscape rather than leave for the next level. He also used Bill O’Brien as an example considering he spent last season with the New England Patriots.

“The Boston College coach left to go to the NFL. First of all, he had NFL ties before that,” Bilas said. “He was in the NFL before he went to Boston College. But then, you saw somebody leave from the NFL to go to Boston College, so what does that say? This, to me, is just – and I love all these coaches – but it’s just more coach complaining. They’re making a ton of money, things have changed, adjust to it. It’s not that big of a deal.”

Bilas: The House v. NCAA case is a ‘freight train coming down the tracks’

There’s one more legal battle NCAA is facing, though. The House v. NCAA case took another turn earlier this month when lawyers filed for class-action status, which would allow the suit to represent a larger group. It’s seeking roughly $4 billion damages related to TV revenue and NIL pay from the NCAA and power conferences.

To Jay Bilas, it’s especially notable considering lawyer Jeff Kessler is helping lead the charge. He played a crucial role in the Alston v. NCAA case which paved the way for NIL, and Bilas predicted the House suit will have major ramifications. That includes the changes he said the NCAA has been avoiding.

“The NCAA has got a freight train coming down the tracks right at it. It’s called the House case, and it’s being litigated by a lawyer named Jeffrey Kessler who won the Alston case,” Bilas said. “That’s for damages for TV revenues and the like. So the NCAA is looking at it judgment in that case of $4 or $5 billion. That means their rules are going to be tossed out, as well. So they’re gonna do this. It’s just a question of whether they’re forced to do it by the courts, whether they’re forced to do it by state and federal legislation.

“But their only hope right now is to – and they’re spending a ton of money doing it – they’re lobbying Congress to get an antitrust exemption so they can continue doing what they’ve been doing, which the courts have said is illegal. The Supreme Court said the NCAA is not above federal antitrust law, and that was a pretty clear signal that that it’s over. And they don’t want to admit it.”