Chris is right, IMO. It's not NIL anymore. It's just still being called that, still. It's just pay to play regardless of the source of money. Actual NIL should have been a thing since the beginning, but the problem was if players could accept funds on behalf of their own NIL, there was no way to discern whether the money was legitimate or from a booster, so they said none of it was ok, which makes sense. Say the singer Oline guy was given a million dollar record deal that didn't exist except because he played football at Marshall. That's a bribe.
But to say the kids didn't get to use their God given talents to better themselves is kind of dishonest. Leaving out the whole 100s of 1000s of dollars in education, room, board, books, stipends. And even at the high school level the best were often given scholarships to private and prep schools. That's how they cashed in on their talent. We've now just waived all that as not counting.
They should have skipped the NIL phase and gone right to salaries or profit sharing. By profit, I mean a cut of the gate. I know the schools are non-profit by design. In this way, they could have capped the money and maintained some control over this mess before it got completely out of hand. And they could have forced the networks to compensate these kids through TV money as they also profit from their talent.
There should be a league minimum and a cap per school/team to maintain a level playing ground with peer schools. The NCAA should have shifted to an auditing body to make sure that was being adhered to and the penalties for not following the guidelines should have been automatic and severe for everyone involved. They aren't going to be able to put the toothpaste back in the tube, easily, at this point