Remember when portals were cool?
Back in the later 1960s, when your family may or may not have had a color TV, the short-lived series Time Tunnel introduced the concept in popular culture. Then Star Trek put it into plot lines with Dr. Bones McCoy, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock jumping into and out of portals.
We were hooked. It was a fun ride for decades, until it wasn’t. Thank you, NCAA, for inattentive leadership.
Portal is defined as “a doorway, gate, or other entrance, especially a large and imposing one.” Ain’t that the truth.
In the college sports universe, the portal is:
— a safe room for players to speed date with more appealing teams;
— the path to more NIL money for the elite talents, whether or not they ultimately deserve it;
— a trip down Delusional Lane, to the Not Ready for Prime Time roster, or maybe a retreat if the door that was slammed can be wedged open;
— as overcrowded as the LBJ Freeway around north Dallas late Friday afternoon;
— a menace on the level of drones the government can’t/won’t explain.
All of the above.
Climate change has struck, not yet with rising sea level projected to eventually turn Tampa real estate into Tampa Bay channels, but around games college teams play. The inconceivable is suddenly reality — not that it’s completely bad.
It’s good that the college students helping their teams make millions for their big-time athletic departments are finally getting more than scholarships. Those are the cornerstone of college sports as we used to know them. Those still have great value for the vast majority of athletes who will never play pro sports. Few student-athletes, stars or subs, will amass and retain generational wealth based how well they play and how marketable they are.
The salary structure has been whacked for years; the difference is some of the revenue is going back to those who truly do put their well-being, physical and emotional, on the line and try to balance full-time sports commitments along with what are in most cases these days, legitimate academic pursuits.
Nearly everybody over the age of 25 agrees there’s a lot of refinement needed in the Name, Image and Likeness money pit, and that ties directly to the swirl of the portal.
This cesspool exists because the NCAA ducked and covered beginning in 2009 when UCLA basketball star Ed O’Bannon lawyered up and sued for a share of revenue. He is the Johnny Appleseed of NIL, the Curt Flood of college sports. Instead of developing a sustainable plan sooner than later, college sports kingpins gradually gave up and let legal leverage and the marketplace take over, and now control is in the hands of politicians and judges.
Where we stand, wobbling: it’s a money grab all around. The financial distribution, however, is not widespread among the powers that have been. There is a food chain and only a few whales and white sharks exist in the depths of college sports. There’s the SEC, the Big Ten, and then the rest, layered steeply downward.
In related news Monday, highly-respected Wake Forest coach Dave Clawson stepped down, the latest veteran disillusioned with the shaky landscape. After getting upset by UL Lafayette this season, he explained, “To fix problems, you need a lot of money. And we recruited what we could afford.”
His record-breaking quarterback, Sam Hartman, jumped in the portal to play his final season of eligibility in 2023 at Notre Dame. Clawson chided the Irish for their video tribute to Hartman on Senior Day, saying, “Here’s a guy that we recruited and we developed and they’re putting a video on him saying, ‘We will always love you.'”
He added: “You only dated him a couple of months. It can’t be love. We’re the ones that love him. We had five years with him. You rented him for a season.”
That’s the portal, and NIL, infecting college sports. Because those in charge didn’t just blink, they loafed.
Down the line, it contributed to Marshall’s mutiny that led to the Independence Bowl’s brief detour near Train Station territory. If you’re into irony, that twist will net Louisiana Tech coach Sonny Cumbie a $25,000 bowl appearance bonus – following a 5-7 season that had many Bulldog faithful calling for his exit.
Speaking of contributions: LSU’s Brian Kelly and Florida State’s Mike Norvell are making them. Their teams were in the national championship conversation at the start of this season, like Nikki Haley was a contender to win the White House.
Four months later, the coaches are essentially rebating some of their exorbitant salaries back to help their programs rent talent. Kelly trotted out a million-dollar NIL match to donors; Norvell redirected nearly half of his $9.9 million salary package in 2025 to attract better players than the guys who went 2-10 this fall.
Just like John Dutton’s Yellowstone Ranch, there seems no way to save college sports as it has existed for generations. And there won’t be any lovely postscript from the ghost of Elsa Dutton to make us feel better about it.
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com