Nebraska football needs to gear up for dramatically different NIL landscape

A court ruling earlier this week is about to make things very different for Nebraska football and the rest of the Huskers athletic department. Things are going to be quite different for the sport in general, but we really only care about how things are going for the Cornhuskers.What’s clear after the ruling is that Matt Rhule and company better be gearing up for a big change. The good news is that Nebraska is one of those teams that seems well-suited to adjust to what’s coming. The downside of the ruling is that while the Huskers are willing and ready to adjust, they don’t have as deep a set of pockets as other teams. Probably. It’s hard to know exactly how much cash is at the disposal of any school. Especially if things are going to change as much as it appears.

The ruling in question declared that the NCAA doesn’t have the authority to regulate NIL and how schools deal with it. For the NCAA, there is a hope that the ruling will be reversed, or the time will run out. The judge brought an injunction so it’s not a final ruling. But it will almost certainly have a near instant impact on college sports.

"The NCAA's prohibition likely violates federal antitrust law and harms student-athletes," U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker wrote in his decision Friday.

Nebraska football needs to gear up for dramatically different NIL landscape

Most notably, the injunction does away with the NCAA’s ruling against “pay for play.” Nebraska football and other schools are, at least for now, able to dictate that money can go to a player just to come to a specific school.

It’s a rule that’s been chipped away at since NIL started up. There have been plenty of people who think that’s what NIL already is. But it hasn’t been anywhere near this obvious that “pay for play,” is in play. Nebraska football needs to make sure it’s away of the changes of the college sports landscape.