The new era of college sports did not announce itself subtly. Instead, it came in the form of a ransom note from an agent you’ve probably never heard of and a player most people even in his own market wouldn’t recognize.
But Adam Papas of NEXT Sports and Isaiah Wong of Miami Hurricanes basketball (at least for now) have pulled the pin and thrown a grenade right into the middle of the NCAA’s attempt to deal with name, image and likeness by covering their eyes and hoping Congress will ride in to save them. This should be the wake-up call that college sports has no choice now but to become an active participant in its own rescue.
To understand exactly what’s going on here, and why Miami basketball has momentarily become the epicenter of an earthquake in college sports, let’s back up a few days.
Alongside an announcement that all-Big 12 guard Nijel Pack was transferring from Kansas State to Miami, billionaire booster John Ruiz quite publicly trumpeted that his company LifeWallet had signed Pack to a two-year, $800,000 deal plus a car for name, image and likeness rights.
Miami guard Isaiah Wong shoots during a game against Duke in Jan. 2022.
Though Ruiz had apparently been paying more than 100 Miami athletes — all legal, according to state law and the new NCAA rules that allow athletes to profit off their marketing rights — this was his biggest deal to date. And making it public sparked one of the biggest reactions within the coaching community I’ve seen in 20 years.
Top college players have been getting big money forever — over the table, under the table, whatever. Before NIL, it wasn’t even all that uncommon for some top players and their inner circles to get paid just for a campus visit. When the FBI investigation into college basketball uncovered that the cost to get Brian Bowen to Louisville was $100,000 — a good recruit, but not necessarily a star-level player — you could only imagine what top-10 guys could have commanded.
But Nijel Pack? Good…
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