What I Wanted to Say at Congress’ NIL Hearing But Wasn’t Asked

January 31, 2024

When GGL co-director Victoria Jackson testified at a Congressional hearing on NIL in 2024, she listened as those around her attempted to explain why so many international athletes – more than 20,000 every year – participate in NCAA sports. Though she wasn’t invited to participate in that conversation, she wrote her explanation in the days following the hearing: For sports with global participation, like women’s soccer, the NCAA is a league on par with the world’s best domestic leagues, so the world’s best athletes come to play in the U.S. collegiate system.

American higher education did not actively choose to run a professional football industry or the world’s best U-23 sports development system. But here we are, and we hold a responsibility to make sure each of these industries is guided by policies that place serving their respective athletes at the heart of their missions. Sometimes we get it right, but too often by accident.

The single-sentence answer to why there are so many international athletes playing college sports? Because colleges opted not to professionalize football and pay players.

While we should take pride in and work to continue the Olympic sports system we have built, we must figure out how to pay for it with new revenue streams and a different funding model—because football players deserve a better deal, and they deserve it now.

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