NCAA transfer portal is a monstrosity, an opportunity and a reality | Michael Lev

The NCAA transfer portal is an emotional roller coaster.

It is simultaneously the worst thing that’s ever happened to college sports and the best chance for “student-athletes” to maximize their value and for programs to rebuild on the fly.

Since the winter portal for football opened Dec. 9, Arizona has seen 30-plus players enter — but a couple of significant ones, including budding-star safety Genesis Smith, withdraw. He’ll be back.

So will quarterback Noah Fifita, who never entered even though he easily could have and no one would have blamed him. Fifita has committed to the UA for the long haul. That makes him a unicorn in these tumultuous times.

The transfer portal is like high school recruiting on steroids. It’s a nonstop adrenaline rush of “with that being saids,” visits, commitments and triumphant returns — all playing out in real time on social media. More than 2,000 players had entered the portal as of Friday afternoon, per On3.com.

When your team loses a player you’ve come to admire, it feels like a punch to the gut. For UA fans, the past week and a half has felt like a sparring session with a 20-year-old Mike Tyson.

When your team lands a player, it feels like winning the lottery — even if you have no idea who that player is. Unless you’re a recruiting diehard, that’s the case more often than not.

But who cares! We got someone! And that someone picked US!!!

I very rarely do this, but I asked ChatGPT to come up with 30 words to describe how fans feel about the portal. A sampling: frustration, excitement, uncertainty, chaos, confusion, optimism, betrayal, anxiety, hope, overwhelming, detrimental and rewarding.

Sums it up nicely, doesn’t it?

Fanning the flames

The current portal window remains open through Saturday, Dec. 28 (unless a head coach retires, resigns or is fired, in which case the players on that team get a separate 30-day opportunity, as UA followers well know). I’d like to peer into it from two perspectives: fans and players.

Let’s start with the fans — i.e., you. I hear your complaints about the portal (and its equally polarizing cousin, NIL). I share your concerns about its potential impact on the future of college athletics. I understand your angst and disillusionment as players come and go ... and come and go ... and come and go.

The current setup likely is unsustainable. No successful professional sport has unfettered, annual free agency. But don’t blame the players; blame the system.

It used to be that players had to sit out a year if they transferred. Then they got one “free” transfer. Now it’s unlimited. The issue was decided in the courts. The NCAA had to capitulate. Players are simply taking advantage of their options.

Still, it hurts when someone who once committed to you decides he’d rather play somewhere else. They might say, “It’s not you, it’s me.” But it’s still a breakup.

As much as you’re rooting for your school, you’re also pulling for people. But how deeply invested can you get in that relationship knowing the other person could leave at any time?

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Even as an objective journalist — at least to the degree that’s possible — I can relate. Example: I wrote a piece last spring about the powerful bond between UA men’s basketball player Oumar Ballo and his head coach, Tommy Lloyd. Just a few weeks later, Ballo entered the portal. He’s playing his final college season at Indiana.

Ballo had reasons to pursue a payday, and Lloyd seemed content to let him go. But the fact that it happened so soon after I’d written that story — sparked by Lloyd saying he was “responsible for Oumar” because “he doesn’t have a dad” — left me feeling deeply cynical about the sports I grew up loving and the people I currently chronicle. What’s the point of all this?

It truly feels as if we’ve lost the plot when a player enters the portal for a third (or fourth) time. Every recruitable athlete — every single one — says their new school “felt like home” or seemed like “a family.” It’s true up until the point that they find a bigger home or a more generous family.

It’s no secret that college athletics has become more professionalized, more businesslike. The UA recently hired a man named Bud Sasser whose job title is Associate Athletic Director, Contracts. Matthew Hayes, who began his UA stint as Associate Athletic Director of Football, is now Senior Associate Athletic Director, Naming Rights. The bills — which soon will include revenue-sharing “salaries” for players — have to be paid.

Is it really in the best interest of young people to switch schools and move multiple times, often crisscrossing the country to do so? I wouldn’t have wanted to do that. Then again, no one was lining up to pay me hundreds of thousands of dollars to play football or basketball (although I could knock down a jumper back in the day).

Following the money

Let’s put ourselves in the athletes’ cleats and sneakers for a moment. For many — most, really — the transfer portal offers perhaps the only opportunity they’ll ever have to monetize their playing ability. Only about 1.6% of college football players make it to the NFL. Who are we to tell the remaining 98.4% that they shouldn’t take the money if someone is offering it?

Whether they should be able to do that every year is another matter. But again, that’s what the current system allows.

Ballo’s game doesn’t fit the NBA. He can make good money playing overseas. He had one chance to put himself on the market in the U.S. He’d have been foolish not to take it.

One of the UA football transfers who’s already found a new school, offensive lineman Wendell Moe Jr., lost his father in January 2021. Moe might make it to the NFL someday; he might not. If he can help his family today — via a lucrative NIL deal from Tennessee — he should have every right to do so.

Players enter the portal for any number of reasons: coaching changes, playing time, money, attention. Some of the soon-to-be-former Wildcats might just want to win. Or they might want to experience something new and different.

If you’re turned off by the transactional nature of it all, I get it. But it hasn’t stopped fans from turning on their TVs. Entering the first round of the College Football Playoff this weekend, ESPN platforms enjoyed their most-watched college football season since 2016.

Is the sport itself worse off because of the portal and NIL? Well, the opening round of the CFP featured a “basketball school” (Indiana) and a first-time member of a Power Four conference (SMU). Alabama didn’t make the field, despite its expansion from four to 12 teams. More schools have a chance to compete in the portal/NIL era. That’s a good thing.

The problem isn’t that players can transfer and make money; it’s that they can do it over and over again. That could hurt college athletics in the long run. If they don’t feel a connection to the players, fans might stop caring at some point. We’ll see.

Any attempt the powers-that-be make to put restrictions on player movement will be roundly rejected in court. The only way to rein it in is through collective bargaining, which could result in standardized player contracts — and an even more professionalized version of college sports.

That might be the lesser of two evils — if you view any of this so scornfully. You probably shouldn’t.

The world of college athletics has changed. The challenge moving forward is how to create the best version of that world for everyone.