North Carolina head coach Mack Brown says college football ‘will never see amateurism again’

Name, image and likeness has completely changed collegiate sports as student-athletes can now make money while competing in college, flipping the recruiting world on its head. 

North Carolina head coach Mack Brown is not a fan.  

“We’re the NFL. We’re the mini-NFL,” Brown told Sports Illustrated “It’s just like the NFL. That’s where we are headed. We will never see amateurism again. It’s gone. I hate it. I thought that’s who we are, what college football is.

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“Now, we are a farm league for the NFL with many NFL programs. We are headed toward an NFL model.”

Brown, who at 71 years old is the oldest coach in the FBS, is preparing to enter his fifth season as head coach at North Carolina. 

He’s been a college football head coach since 1985, including a gap in which he didn’t coach 2013-2019. 

Brown has seen it all throughout his time in the game, and he’s frustrated with the current NIL model that has created a “pay-for-play” atmosphere in recruiting. 

“Cheaters cheat. People who used to give inducements are still doing that. It’s just called NIL,” Brown says. “This stupid thing about ‘it’s not pay-for-play.’ Why are they paying them? They’re not paying them for nothing. It is what it is. I wish we would stop hiding behind NIL.”

Brown believes athletes should be compensated as part of a system with a “salary cap” and that the NCAA should divide into divisions along revenue-generating lines. 

“We’ve all got to get together. I wish our leadership would be more of a group,” Brown told SI. “We’ve got people making decisions that are making decisions for the whole. You can’t make the same decisions for Division II like you do the Power 5. We’re doing that, and it doesn’t work. Even FCS. Even Group of 5. There’s not as much money. We need to separate divisions.”

Brown is not the only major head coach to take issue with the current model of NIL. Alabama’s Nick Saban made it clear in March he sees flaws in the current NIL system. 

“The issue is, when you create those [collectives] for people, are you establishing a pay-for-play type of environment that can be used in recruiting? So, now, all the sudden, guys are not going to school where they can create the most value for their future,” Saban told Sports Illustrated. “Guys are going to school where they can make the most money. I don’t think that is even the best thing for the player.”

There have been increased calls for a more structured way to regulate NIL, with U.S. senators Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., announcing their intention to draft legislation regulating NIL in August.