Why is it a farce? It's a farce to make money, that's a farce? They were being totally exploited, and still are. SCOTUS, not normally a pro-little guy institution when it comes to ruling on big money and who gets to keep it and who has to eat cake, emphatically and unanimously condemned the NCAA's exploitation racket. And very grudgingly and out of panic did the NCAA throw out this slapdash 'NIL' regime, lest they lose all their legitimacy completely to the point of possibly being forcibly disbanded. While still working furiously behind the scenes to reinstate the old plantation system with some sweeping legal maneuver that would manage to override the basic essence of the free market, by getting an 'exception' to the normal rule of law. Which is now their only chance to hold on to power.
Naturally, in response to their public humiliation they did the bare minimum, as if to take no action or make no gesture that would imply a loss of their jealously wielded arbitrary power over college sports, and players are on paper only allowed to make money for advertising, which I suppose still manages to keep the whole phony amateurism principle, more like charade, philosophically in place. Even though it doesn't, and more importantly without which the NCAA would stand naked as the pure racketeers they are. But they keep getting slapped down by America's increasingly depraved legal system for prohibiting players' ability to make money off of football, based on no other reason than their own unilateral say-so. Like for instance as a de facto recruiting inducement, which would be the main/only reason you would pay a player. And of course they're helpless to prevent it nor do they even want to. They're willing to watch the whole thing burn. It's their only chance, however vain and pathetic and iniquitous, to come to the rescue and reinstate the scourge of "Amateurism", which is just straight exploration - period. Just like any plantation owner or the like in the antebellum south. And the NCAA's entire existence is built around it.
And so of course the NIL landscape is a free for all. The NCAA doesn't give a shit. They would presumably calculate that it would be great for things to get really greasy, and maybe public sentiment among largely hardcore conservative, pro-business football fans would swing back the other way. And they cheer regrettable incidents like this because it serves their cause. They'd love to reassert their authority with an iron fist, but they really can't, so let the whole thing run rampant. But apparently full-blown revenue sharing, professionalization and employee status is right around the corner, and title IX isn'g going to save them either. And that would seemingly spell the end of the NCAA's reign of terror.
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