Iowa AD Gary Barta Thinks NCAA Should Change Transfer Rule Amid NIL Concerns

Barta has an idea for how college sports can regulate the new system.

As universities try to navigate the new world of college sports involving new name, image and likeness rules, many people in leadership positions are pushing for further change. Iowa athletic director Gary Barta, who at one point was the College Football Committee chair, thinks that programs are abusing the fact that they can pay players.

On the “Fight for Iowa” podcast, Barta laid out his issues with the system.

“What has happened is the combination—NIL, in and of itself, what it was intended, so that student-athletes can make some money off of their image, their name and their likeness is a good thing,” Barta said, via 247 Sports. “And actually, that part of it is going well on our campus. But what's happened is it's now being used for recruiting inducements, and that was never intended.”

Specifically, Barta believes the transfer portal has been impacted the most.

“And then you have the transfer portal, which, again, in and of itself, was not a bad thing—getting some of the how you can transfer cleaned up,” he said. “But you can take NIL and now you combine it with transfers, and that's the storm. That's the storm we're living through right now, and something has to change.”

So what should the NCAA do about it? Barta believes they should go back to forcing transfers to sit out a year before playing for their new school. Last year, the NCAA passed a rule allowing players to transfer and play for their team right away instead of sitting out a season.

“If you transfer, you can transfer. You don't lose your scholarship. But you must sit out a year, because we can control that,” Barta said. “And that, I think, would slow down the name, image and likeness deals because a booster isn't going to offer a student-athlete a big sum of money if they know, if they come into their university, they have to sit out a year. But at the same time, once the student's there, you can put together, they can put together, a name, image and likeness package that they benefit from.”

Barta is not the only one to want change with the current system. Earlier this week, Oklahoma State men’s basketball head coach Mike Boynton expressed his displeasure to Sports Illustrated’s Jason Jordan with the way NIL is being used.

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