E:60 S18E12 - Paid to Play: Understanding College Sports in 2025

For generations, the NCAA defended one sacred principle: college athletes were amateurs – students first, playing for school pride, tradition, and the love of the game. But now, in 2025, that world has all but disappeared. A series of federal rulings has ushered in an era of athlete sponsorships via Name Image Likeness (NIL), free agency through the transfer portal, and – after this year's landmark House settlement – direct school payments to student athletes. 

For even the most diehard fan, the pace of change has been hard to track. How'd we get here? Who's benefiting – or not? And what does the future of college sports actually look like?

In the one-hour E60 special, Schaap explores and reveals the forces reshaping the billion-dollar industry. Through the biggest names in college sports, he breaks down how schools are now paying players, the explosive rise of the NIL industry, how the transfer portal really works and what the role of the NCAA is in a landscape it no longer fully controls.