-We move now to college sports.

In 2021 the NCAA began allowing college athletes to earn money from third parties off their name, image, and likeness, or NIL.

Now, thanks to the House versus NCAA antitrust settlement, those athletes can make money off their NIL from their very own schools.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, UNLV says it intends to compensate its athletes.

This is just one of several stories the outlet is covering as part of a new series called "College Sports Chaos."

Ed Graney, Lead Sports Columnist at the Review-Journal, joined me to explain.

(Ed Graney) We thought it important to do a series of stories to kind of explain this, explain the House settlement, explain what NIL is, explain how NIL works at schools with collectives, how they get money for kids, how kids do jobs or appearances or stuff like that, in terms of getting paid by that entity.

I think we've done a good job explaining what can be kind of a difficult thing to understand for a lot of people.

It's like, Why are kids getting paid?

How did this happen?

You know, there's a lot of Title IX implications in this.

There's now lawsuits from women athletes who, you know, these athletes in the past who haven't been paid, there's a certain amount of money who are going to go to athletes who came before now.

-You also talk about the transfer portal.

-Yes, which is out of control.

-What impact has that had on UNLV?

-Well, I mean, I think let's take a coach like Josh Pastner, who's the new basketball coach.

You know, a lot of kids you lose because of graduation.

Some transfer out.

You've got to build a whole new team now, and I think Josh has done a good job getting in the portal and getting himself some really fine players.

But you can only-- and Dan Mullen, the new football coach, told me this: You really only recruit year to year now, because you never know what the transfer portal is going to bring and how many kids you're going to lose.

Dan Mullen makes a kind of a deal with a player like, Let's go one year, one year at a time, give me everything you can for the year.

And then afterwards, if you're going to leave and you're happy to leave, then, you know, they'll have been happy to have you, and they'll leave on good terms.

That's how you have to recruit now.

You can't recruit for three or four years down the road, because of the transfer portal.

Because so many kids, whether it be lack of playing time in their mind, schooling, atmosphere, whatever the-- whatever the reasons being for all these kids jumping into this portal, it's important now as a coach to know that you really have to recruit year to year, because you just never know how many kids might leave in a year, -And that transfer portal, does that also play into getting paid?

A player may go to a different university in hopes that they'll get more attention and perhaps a better deal?

-There's no question.

Countless schools have lost kids every year because the NIL money is better at other places.

You know, UNLV lost a couple in terms of basketball player who went to, who went to an SEC school who made more money there as an NIL, as an NIL collective.

So, yeah, that's, you know, your reality is what your reality is at your school, moneywise.

And if it's not enough and a kid can get more elsewhere, we've seen that countless times, not just at UNLV, but all across the country.

Almost every school has kids who have now jumped from lower levels to bigger levels because they're promised more NIL dollars.

And, you know, I mean, I can't fault a kid.

I can't fault the kid if someone's-- We've heard of NIL deals in the several million dollar range.

That's life-changing for kids and their families.

So I'm not going to fault kids for doing it.

It's just the reality of what college sports is now.

It's the reality of the world they live in.

And I don't know if it's going to get any different.

The NIL, with the schools being able to pay the kids, the NIL is going to be a little different.

There will be a little more strenuous rules on NIL now.

Anyone with an NIL over $600 will now have to fill out an application to make sure that a clearing house believes it's worth that.

If a kid says, I'm gonna get a million dollars from NIL, well, you're gonna have to prove why you're worth a million dollars, what your worth is, and are you doing things outside of it to earn that money.

That way-- The collective head at UNLV told me that way it's not just, hey, here's a million dollars and show up to my birthday party.

I mean-- -And that has been the case in some of them.

-That's probably, across the country, been a case in terms of giving kids money and them not really following through with all that was promised that they had to do, you know, to earn the money.

But now that's-- There's a clearing house now that's gonna be, you know, in charge of making sure that doesn't happen within NIL.

-And when you refer to the UNLV collective, what is that?

And that's-- Do schools get to pick how they're facilitating this, dispersing the money?

-Well, there's a fine line between the collective and the school.

And a collective is, you know, people who raise money for the NIL go out and, you know, garner sponsorships, garner money, garner donations, and that's the pool of money that the collective can use for the NIL.

-And are they doing that on behalf of one player or all players?

-Anyone who wants to be involved can be involved.

If you don't want to be, you don't have to be.

But, look, there's more football, men's basketball, women's basketball-- UNLV, Lindy La Rocque has done a tremendous job with their women's basketball program.

They've won at a very high level.

Most schools' NIL collectives, kind of their finances go towards those sports.

They're the revenue generating sports.

That's just the reality of the situation.

So most-- a lot of the NIL money goes to those sports.

But if you're a baseball player or softball player and you want to be involved, I'm sure the collective will look at that and try to help out as well.

-Okay.

And so then let's say a car dealership wants to sponsor a certain athlete, they have to go through the NIL collective?

-Yeah, or the collective, you know, approaches the car dealership and says, Hey, we have Joe Smith, you know, the starting quarterback, you know, can we make a deal here?

And he promotes the car.

And that's the way the sponsorship gets the kid in some NIL money.

-Last thing, UNLV football.

New coach.

-Dan Mullen.

-Yes.

Coming off some successful seasons, but then they lose Barry Odom.

What do you foresee for them?

-Well, coach of Mississippi State and Florida, he's been at big time places.

He knows big time people, spent some years.

I think it really helped him that he spent the last few years at ESPN and on the TV side of things.

So did Josh Pastner, by the way, the basketball coach.

I think it helped both those guys really see their sports from afar--this NIL world, this transfer portal world.

So when they got their next opportunity, they really knew going in what it was about and how to approach it.

I think Dan Mullen is going to do a really good job.

He knows what he's doing.

He's coached some of the best quarterbacks who's ever come out of college and in the pros.

He's kind of a quarterback guru, and I think he's gonna do a fine job.

They've-- Barry Odom did a great job, obviously, setting a standard by which UNLV football should now be known for.

He had historic seasons at UNLV in a very short amount of time.

And I think when that is set-- Dan's gone into the transfer portal.

He's brought on a lot of, you know, high-level players.

I think the Mountain West is a league that they can certainly compete in for championships every year.

You got Boise, who's only the last year before they go to the PAC-12.

I think when these five teams that are going to the PAC-12 league, I think UNLV--and I've written this--I think UNLV should be the standard bearer of that new conference or that new Mountain West.

I think they should be the one everyone's chasing.

I think they should be good enough in football and men's basketball to where they're the ones everyone are trying to catch.

So I think it will be disappointment if they're not.

-The UNLV football team opens its season at home on August 23 against Idaho State.

For more information on any of the topics covered in this show, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.