Urban Meyer explains why he thinks college NIL collectives are 'cheating'

Urban Meyer is the latest big-name college football figure to strongly criticize one aspect of the NCAA’s handling, or lack thereof, of name, image and likeness rights.

In a conversation with Dan Dakich of Outkick, Meyer took aim at NIL collectives, calling them “a fancy word for cheating” and a violation of the NIL rules currently in place.

“I’m not saying it’s all that way, but from my understanding, it’s a fancy word for cheating,” Meyer said. “When I hear that word I kind of cringe right now and I hear the stories behind it that they’re going to go to donors and boosters and ask for a lot of money and then decide who gets that money based on ability level. Which, I think is 1A of the rule of NIL, you can’t do that.”

NIL collectives are, essentially, organizations that exist to pool funds from donors and boosters and funnel them back to players. While most are affiliated with specific universities, the schools themselves do not have any direct control over them, and university employees cannot donate to them.

Ironically enough, Meyer joined the board of THE Foundation, which bills itself as the “official No. 1 non-profit NIL collective for Ohio State football and basketball,” in March 2022. As of Friday, he was still listed as a board member on its official website.

Whatever the case, Meyer is hardly the only critic of the state of NIL in college sports right now. At some point, major changes will have to be made, because it is difficult to argue his points.