It’s become one of the most controversial aspects of bowl games in today’s college football: Will star players opt out, or will they play?
It wasn’t all that long ago that big time players were eager to showcase their talents to a national audience during bowl season, but the implementation of the College Football Playoff has greatly reduced the value placed on non-CFP bowl games. Over the last decade, college football fans have witnessed some of the top players in the sport choose to skip out on participating in a bowl game if a national championship isn’t on the line.
In 2023, Ohio State’s Marvin Harrison Jr. – widely recognized as the top wide receiver in college football – opted out of the Buckeyes Cotton Bowl matchup against Missouri. Although there were other factors at play, Harrison’s absence certainly contributed to Ohio State’s embarrassing 14-3 loss to the Tigers.
In that same year, a whopping 23 Florida State players opted out of playing in the Orange Bowl against Georgia. There’s an argument that most of the opt-out decisions were made in protest against their exclusion from the College Football Playoff, but the end result was a brutal 63-3 loss for the Seminoles.
With opt-outs becoming more commonplace in today’s college football, one Bowl Season director thinks that may be coming to an end in the near future. According to a report by Yahoo Sports, Bowl Season director Nick Carparelli thinks that a significant change in NIL will ultimately reduce – or eliminate – bowl game opt-outs.
“I had a meeting recently with Charlie Baker and we discussed that,” Carparelli said according to the Yahoo Sports report. “On a national level, what needs to happen for everybody is collectives need to be brought in house and universities need to manage that. I think what will come with that is we’ll see agreements, much like any other employment agreement between athletes and the university now compensating them, whether it’s employee or employer relationship or inducement contractors, and when we see these binding agreements with their student-athletes, you’re going to see student-athletes that are required to play in 12 regular season games, the bowl game, and the CFP as part of their compensation, not unlike how the rest of the real world works.”
There’s a lot to like about Carparelli’s future outlook on NIL and its impact on bowl games. Right now, NIL is like the wild west with collectives offering financial incentives to players with virtually no oversight. Oftentimes, one side is not holding up its end of the bargain – whether it’s the collectives failing to deliver on financial promises made, or the student-athletes failing to fulfill their obligations as part of the agreement. By bringing NIL in-house, universities would have more control and oversight as to how those dollars are being used, the promises that are being made, and the requirements for each player who benefits from an NIL program.
