The concept of "NIL" that the NCAA developed only addressed "enrolled student athletes". To my knowledge, I've never read anything officially published by the NCAA that directly addresses high school athletes other than NIL cannot be used for recruiting. I honestly think the NCAA assumed that paying high school athletes as an enticement to enroll was an obvious and universally unacceptable concept by all parties. The court ruling was very limited and primarily addressed antitrust issues and the definition of amateurism. That's what the NCAA hoped to address with NIL.This is a bit naive. I think they 100% knew it would be a giant problem and when they lost the case in court, decided to open the flood gates in an attempt to say "here, this is what you want" so they could be "right" in the end.
The best option was to realize that opening this can of worms was a) inevitable b) the right thing to do by the players and c) a major opportunity. An empowered NCAA could have said "we are going to work with all of the major stakeholders to ensure a fair and equitable situation for players AND programs" and upon agreement, the rules will be agreed to by all member institutions and iron-clad. This was the part that never happened. But they 100% knew it would end up exactly like it has.
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