How paying players directly will affect Ohio State

The landscape of college sports has officially changed forever. With the landmark settlement with the NCAA, programs can now start paying players directly. That means that Ohio State is going to have to start paying players for all sports. The football, basketball, and women’s basketball programs will be the most affected by this.

So how does this affect the NIL structure that there currently is? That likely will go away soon enough. Collectives will be less important as well, unless they become the ones to negotiate contracts on behalf of the universities. The Buckeyes will have to deal with that for all of their revenue-generating sports.

Ohio State’s non-revenue sports are most affected by this new ruling

So what happens to non-revenue-generating sports now? With every waking resource being used to help pay football, basketball, and women’s basketball players, it will be hard to have enough funds to run other sports. I’m not sure how the pistol or synchronized swimming team continue to operate under this new structure.

Ohio State is one of the schools that might be able to keep some of those sports. Smaller schools are almost certainly going to have to cut sports. It’s a shame that those athletes likely won’t get the same treatment as the bigger ones, but that’s the world we live in now. This is certainly a double-edged sword.

This will come into effect very soon, so schools are going to need to start planning for this. A five-star quarterback is going to cost programs a lot of money. Players will have more power than ever in an era where they already have a ton. We’ll see how that affects recruiting decisions for the next new classes.

Ohio State’s money will have to be budgeted well by new AD Ross Bjork. This is the job he gets to walk right into. Gene Smith got out at a good time.