Paul Finebaum says there is ‘no hope’ for integrity inside collegiate athletics

The college sports landscape has been undergoing a major facelift in the past few years, as new elements like name, image, and likeness and the transfer portal have altered every sport in an unprecedented way.

Positive takeaways have been drawn from these new changes, but so have negatives, including concerns regarding uniformity in rules and regulations, negative impacts on recruiting, and the overall amateurism and integrity of collegiate athletics. ESPN analyst Paul Finebaum was recently asked about the integrity surrounding these new changes on ‘McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning’, and was rather pessimistic about the state of collegiate sports.

“It’s not easy, but the first place you could stop some of the problems are in the portal by putting more stricter guidelines in terms of when and where, and I know that’s already happened a little bit,” Finebaum said. “I don’t think there’s any help for NIL, I am bone weary of talking about congressional intervention, I simply don’t believe that and I don’t think it’s coming any time soon.”

Players, coaches, and decision-makers, particularly in the college football space, have recently been pushing for more uniformity regarding name, image, and likeness at the congressional level. The SEC even brought a group of their top leaders to Washington DC to lobby in person for a nationwide NIL mandate, as the combination of state-to-state NIL regulation and NIL’s impact on recruiting have raised concerns.

“But within the portal you could at least make the playing field a little more palatable to coaches, but I think that’s the only place,” Finebaum said. “As far as rules, there’s simply no hope.”

New windows have been strategically placed to control the ebbs and flows of the transfer portal activity and the recruiting, but that doesn’t solve all of the problems that come with the portal. As coaches have already grown weary of the new recruiting challenges presented by the portal and complaints about the ‘poaching’ of players.

“There is simply nothing anybody can do right now, or probably ever again, to maintain a semblance of integrity in intercollegiate athletics, that’s over,” Finebaum concluded.

There are normally two sides to every coin, and while student-athletes being granted power than ever monetarily and through the ability to move freely from one school to another is empowering, it can come with consequences if not regulated correctly. Consequences that Finebaum believes have already started to show and are likely not to stop.

The post Paul Finebaum says there is ‘no hope’ for integrity inside collegiate athletics appeared first on On3.