Navigating NIL, the transfer portal, and academic decision-making: A pilot study of athletics academic support staff at a Group of Five NCAA program

Navigating NIL, the Transfer Portal, and Academic Decision-Making: A Pilot Study of Athletics Academic Support Staff at a Group of Five NCAA Program

With the introduction of the transfer portal in 2018, an ongoing transition in NCAA student-athlete mobility and empowerment has occurred. In response to public pressure and new laws enacted by federal and state legislatures (e.g., Fair Pay to Play Act, 2019; NCAA v. Alston, 2021), the NCAA has been transitioning from its long-standing traditional model of amateurism to a more professionalized hybrid structure. The commercialization of college sports and the ability for student-athletes to now profit from their name, image, or likeness (NIL) represents an evolution of the Athletic Industrial Complex (AIC, Hawkins, 2010; Smith, 2017), which may promote and reinforce student-athlete prioritization of commercial pursuits over educational ones, at risk of hindering their long-term career development.

When focusing on a revenue generation sport such as football, the new policies have led to almost half of all Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) football players who enter the portal failing to find a new team (AD Advisors, 2023), with others likely to have negative effects on their long-term financial earnings (Derdenger & Li, 2025). There are also concerns that the structural changes may also lead to increased academic clustering (Paule-Koba, 2015; Watkins et al., 2022). In totality, across many NCAA sponsored sports, these policy changes are likely to encourage greater athletic identity foreclosure among student-athletes (Brewer & Petitpas, 2017; Chun et al., 2023).

Extant literature highlights that many student-athletes often experience a low internal locus of control (Huml et al., 2014; Holden et al., 2019; Kimball, 2007), with athletic support staff being tasked with helping student-athletes navigate academic, career, and personal challenges (Burns et al., 2013; Harry et al., 2023). As such, athletic academic support staff have a unique understanding of how student-athletes are affected by these recent NCAA policy changes, while being able to offer deeper institutional and structural insights when sharing their perspectives. Accordingly, this pilot study explored how athletic academic support staff at a Group of Five FBS institution perceive the impact of NIL and transfer-portal policies on student-athletes’ academic decision-making and development, seeking to answer the following research questions:

RQ1. How do athletic academic support staff perceive recent NCAA policy changes (e.g., NIL and the transfer portal) as influencing student‑athletes’ academic decision‑making, including major selection and long‑term career planning?

RQ2. In what ways do athletic academic support staff perceive institutional structures, cultures, and advising practices such as shaping student‑athletes’ agency, autonomy, and ability to explore academic or career opportunities outside of sport?

RQ3. How do athletic academic support staff describe the challenges created by balancing athletic demands, academic responsibilities, NIL opportunities, and career development processes for student‑athletes, and what strategies do they use to address these challenges?

Methods

This qualitative pilot study used semi-structured virtual interviews with academic support professionals at one G5 FBS institution. Participants (N = 6) included advisors, learning specialists, and student-athlete development personnel aged 18 or older. Participants were recruited using publicly available institutional contact information. Those interested received an IRB-approved informed consent form to review and sign prior to interviews being conducted. Interviews were conducted on a secure virtual platform, lasting between 45 minutes and 1 hour and 20 minutes. With participant permission, interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim; all transcripts are de-identified, and recordings deleted upon verification. Data were then analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2016, 2021) which involved iterative coding, memoing, theme development, and refinement. As a pilot, the study emphasized feasibility testing, clarity of the interview guide, resonance of emerging themes, and preparation for expansion to multiple G5 institutions.

Findings

Four themes emerged from the analysis. First, structural mechanisms—particularly progress‑toward‑degree (PTD) requirements, transfer credit restrictions, and the timing of transfer‑portal movement being tied to athletic offseasons—constrained the academic choices available to student‑athletes. This pattern reflects the broader structural pressures observed in recent industry analyses of transfer‑portal behavior (AD Advisors, 2023) and aligns with the shifting regulatory environment created by the Fair Pay to Play Act (2019) and NCAA v. Alston (2021). Second, NIL era dynamics introduced a market‑oriented decision logic, where some student-athletes have prioritized financial opportunity and roster mobility over academic fit considerations. These patterns correspond with emerging NIL scholarship demonstrating intensified competition and reallocation of athlete decision-making incentives (Derdenger & Li, 2025), and with earlier identity‑based accounts of how athletic role commitments may supersede academic priorities (Brewer & Petitpas, 2017; Chun et al., 2023). Third, academic autonomy operated within advisor constructed guardrails, with staff helping student-athletes structure course schedules around established athletic time demands and providing a thoughtfully planned support system that reduced cognitive load. Advisors also described tailoring their support to compensate for the short‑cycle academic relationships created by recent and frequent student‑athlete mobility, emphasizing early‑semester course planning conversations, developing foundational study and time‑management habits, and maintaining academic progress for students who may remain at their program for a limited time period. These practices correspond with established evidence that student‑athletes depend on academic support systems to navigate constrained environments (Burns et al., 2013; Huml et al., 2014) and reflect prior work suggesting that perceived autonomy among athletes is influenced substantially by institutional conditions rather than student preference alone (Kimball, 2007). Finally, time scarcity and program‑level culture shaped the extent to which academic and career development opportunities were feasible, being consistent with earlier research (Harry et al., 2023; Huml et al., 2014). Collectively, these findings illustrate how NIL related market forces operate alongside longstanding structural and cultural conditions to influence student‑athlete academic decision-making and developmental progression.

References

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