From Reggie Bush to the Transfer Portal: How College Football’s Shadow Economy Went Public
College football has always lived with an open secret: money has flowed through the sport long before it was ever allowed to do so openly. What has changed in the past few years is not the existence of payments, but the visibility, scale, and lack of enforcement surrounding them. The rise of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) compensation and the transfer portal has transformed college football into a version of free agency—one where tampering is increasingly normalized, if not outright expected.
At the center of today’s debate is a growing concern that programs and NIL collectives are crossing clear lines. Reports and firsthand accounts from coaches, agents, and players describe situations where athletes are offered massive NIL packages before they ever enter the transfer portal, or where money is funneled to family members as a way to skirt regulations. While the rules technically prohibit inducements prior to portal entry, enforcement has proven minimal, and the incentives to bend—or break—the rules are enormous (FOX Sports).
To understand how college football arrived here, it’s worth looking back nearly two decades—to 2006, and to Reggie Bush.
The Reggie Bush Case: Punished for What Was Always There
In the mid-2000s, Reggie Bush was the face of college football. The USC running back won the 2005 Heisman Trophy and became one of the most electric players the sport had ever seen. Behind the scenes, however, Bush and his family were receiving impermissible benefits from would-be sports marketers, including cash, travel, housing, and other gifts. A later civil suit alleged the total value of those benefits reached approximately $291,600 (Wikipedia).
At the time, NCAA rules were rigid: any compensation tied to a player’s athletic status—directly or indirectly—was strictly forbidden. The fallout was severe. USC was hit with major sanctions, including a two-year postseason ban and the loss of 30 scholarships. Bush vacated his Heisman Trophy, and USC was forced to vacate wins from the height of its dynasty (https://www.wbng.com).
What makes the Bush case especially relevant today is not just what he did, but how commonplace similar behavior was across the sport. The difference is that Bush became the most prominent example of a system the NCAA claimed to police—but rarely controlled consistently.
NIL and the Portal: Legal Money, Familiar Tactics
Fast forward to the modern era. NIL, legalized in 2021, was meant to correct decades of inequity by allowing athletes to profit from their own name, image, and likeness. In principle, it was a long-overdue reform. In practice, NIL has merged with the transfer portal to create a marketplace that closely resembles professional free agency—without the guardrails.
Today, players routinely receive six- and seven-figure NIL offers tied directly to roster decisions. Enforcement bodies have raised alarms about third-party deals being promised before players officially enter the portal, a practice that closely mirrors tampering in professional sports (FOX Sports). In some cases, compensation is structured through family members or loosely defined “services agreements,” echoing the same indirect payment methods that brought down Bush nearly 20 years ago.
The key difference? What once triggered historic sanctions is now often treated as a cost of doing business.
Tampering Becomes the Norm
Multiple reports indicate that tampering is no longer an exception—it’s an expectation. Agents and intermediaries shop players’ NIL value while they are still enrolled at their current schools. Coaches quietly prepare for departures they haven’t officially been notified about. Some programs openly acknowledge that refusing to engage in these practices puts them at a competitive disadvantage (SI).
Ironically, the NCAA still insists that “pay-for-play” is not allowed. Yet the distinction between NIL compensation and inducement has become increasingly blurred, especially when deals materialize immediately after a player enters the portal. As the College Sports Commission recently warned, making promises before eligibility clearance places athletes at risk and undermines competitive balance (FOX Sports).
The Ironic Legacy of Reggie Bush
In 2024, Bush had his Heisman Trophy reinstated, with organizers explicitly citing the modern NIL landscape as part of the rationale (https://www.wbng.com). The decision symbolized a broader acknowledgment: Bush was punished not for inventing corruption, but for being caught in a system that profited from him while denying him legitimacy.
The uncomfortable truth is that much of what was deemed impermissible in 2006 now exists in plain sight. The money is bigger. The movement is faster. And the enforcement is weaker.
Conclusion: The Rules Changed, the Game Didn’t
College football’s current NIL-driven transfer economy didn’t emerge overnight. It is the evolution of a shadow system that has always existed—one that once destroyed careers and programs when exposed. Reggie Bush’s story serves as both a cautionary tale and a mirror, reflecting how far the sport has come, and how little its underlying incentives have changed.
The difference today is simple: what was once whispered is now advertised. And whether college football can regain a sense of balance without repeating the mistakes of its past remains an open question.
