Revenue sharing settlement leaves plenty of questions for Clemson Football and all college sports

How does this impact Clemson Football?

Clemson Football head coach Dabo Swinney has stated before that the Tigers use their NIL funds for retention, not acquisition. He does not want the relationship between the program and the player to be transactional in nature. He wants the relationship to be based on something more than just how much money the player can make.

Clemson can continue that philosophy under the terms of the House vs. NCAA settlement if it chooses, as far as we know. The Tigers can still focus revenue sharing on their current players and make no guarantees to the players they are recruiting.

Time will tell how different schools and conferences decide to ration the $20 million to be shared every year. There is one thing we do know with relative certainty: there are some schools out there that don’t have deep pockets with NIL that will now have upwards of $20 million in revenue sharing to use in the acquisition of players.

For those who are still saying ‘But that violates NCAA rules’, remember that most rules restricting how schools offer NIL have been suspended by an injunction issued due to the lawsuit filed by the states of Tennessee and Virginia against the NCAA. It is thought that any outcome or settlement of that case would eliminate NCAA rules that prevent a player from being able to negotiate their NIL value to the fullest, which includes being able to discuss that before commitments and (likely) before entering the portal (another reason why collective bargaining might still be the ultimate goal to get such things under control).

Clemson’s limited efforts in the portal have not yielded results, but they have continued to find the personalities in high school recruiting that value what Clemson can offer over what schools like Miami, Tennessee, Ohio State, or Texas A&M can offer in NIL. Will they still find those players when South Carolina, NC State, Auburn, Penn State, Wisconsin, and others can also jump into that game?

Only time will tell how this might impact Clemson Football.