Big Time Contributor Hits Portal Due To Unmet Demands

The NIL world is a unique one. In many ways, it’s fantastic. Athletes have been generating millions and now billions for decades but were never able to reap the benefits of their efforts. Now, they absolutely can — and some are in ways that the average fan never thought possible. You now have big time athletes inking six and seven-figure deals with some of the largest companies on the planet, like Nike, Adidas, Bose and Gatorade just to name a few.

However, the NIL world isn’t all positive either. We’ve seen deals fall apart on both sides of the fence. Athletes have pocketed money only to skip town or go back on their word and boosters and collectives have come up short when it comes to athletes getting paid. It’s certainly an imperfect system and it seems to be morphing and changing, literally by the hour. If you really follow it, across all levels and all sports, you wouldn’t have time for anything else.

Recently, a big time player from a big time school made news for some of the wrong reasons when it comes to NIL, the transfer portal and what college football has become. Jack Pyburn, a linebacker at the university of Florida, reportedly jumped into the transfer portal after the Gators refused to meet his “demands”.

Now it seems that players have moved beyond just asking for lucrative NIL deals and are demanding depth chart positioning, playing time and rotational arrangement to go along with the money. This is not how the transfer portal or NIL deals are supposed to work. The transfer portal should be available for players who are in a less-than ideal situation whether that be because of playing time, coaching changes or something to do with their family perhaps. It was never intended for for starting captains who play a ton and have a bright future in their current position. As for NIL deals, they should be about players earning money based on their market value, not “pay for play”, which is what they’re almost all about now.

Our goal here at Roy is not to point out the negative occurrences surrounding athletes, their transfer portal decisions or their NIL developments, but it’s impossible to ignore the unfortunate situations. With Roy, Pyburn could accomplish some of his goals, with the help of devoted Gators fans, while keeping everyone in the loop and protected. It’s obviously not playing out that way, but it would’ve been interesting to see how it could work out if it was managed better.