Arkansas Running Out of Time to Play Game It Knows It Can Win

By now, Arkansas fans have to be getting nervous.

The window on the NIL era everyone is currently familiar with known as "pay to play" is coming to a close. It could be in the next hour or within the next few days, but a court ruling that would establish revenue sharing as the primary way of doing business will bring that to a close as soon as it kicks in.

With it goes the ability to hand out large chicken nugget shaped NBA type paychecks. Instead, players will be subject to what everyone orignally thought was happening when NIL was first approved.

Players will be expected to be paid for their actual market value when entering agreements that use their name, image and likeness. So, instead of a car dealership dropping a half million for a player to do a few social media posts and maybe one appearance, that player might get $600-$1,000 to appear in a commercial instead.

Whatever the agreement may be, it will have to go before a NCAA review board to make sure the player is getting a fair market price and nothing more. The one advantage head coach John Calipari and the Razorbacks had was any NIL agreements made before the revenue sharing kicks in will theoretically be grandfathered in because they were made at a time where rules were different.

That means the Hogs were free to hand out large sacks of money to players in the transfer portal and incoming freshmen. It was viewed as the one positive to the Razorbacks losing in the Sweet 16.

It gave Calipari roughly two weeks to work his magic in recruiting with more free time to focus on nailing down deals for elite talent. However, with the window to a point where it can theoretically be measured in hours, there have been no announcements of players from the portal or from freshman five-star Nate Ament in regard to the Razorbacks.

Instead, key names keep falling off the board. Presumably, Arkansas may be focusing its financial efforts on bringing back its core that came together for a big run toward the end of the season.

It's not going to be cheap to keep Adou Thiero out of the draft and some of the other players out of the portal. However, there are needs that can only be met through the portal, so stress is beginning to build among fans.

At the very least, Arkansas needs an athletic big man, and those are hard to find. Much like great tackles and defensive ends on the football side of things, they go at a high price and rather quickly.

A lot of the Razorbacks' best options, including UAB's Yaxel Lindeborg and Bucknell's Noah Williamson, are off the board. If the ruling comes down and Calipari hasn't made it through self-checkout with a big man in his basket, Arkansas theoretically loses a big part of its advantage.

Yes, there is a little leeway in that Arkansas players can end up in national commercials for Tyson chicken, but beyond that, there's not a lot of room to line pockets of players with any more cash than other SEC schools. If Kentucky opts to not be as favorable to football as Arkansas and drop more revenue sharing cash into the pool for Mark Pope and his basketball team, Calipari might even find himself at a disadvantage.

Much like when NIL came about, there was an uneasiness with the unknown and how it would shake out. Arkansas needs to play the cards it know for certain how to use to win because once the game changes, no one knows how the Razorbacks will fare.

How long it will be until that happens is anyone's guess, but the clock's ticking.

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