🏅The Era of the NIL Redshirt is here

Hey there,

Something… odd is happening with redshirting this year. The system — which allows a player to maintain their eligibility an extra year if they only play four games — is being changed fundamentally, and it’s all happening because of NIL.

But what is an “NIL redshirt”? And how’s it changing college sports? We’re taking you through the recent developments to find out how, and why, players are redshirting for compensation.

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— Cole, Justin and Collin

Remember back to that Matthew Sluka – UNLV drama earlier this fall? You know, the whole conversation about whether UNLV didn’t hold up their end of the bargain, or whether Sluka quit on his teammates? Yeah, we wrote about it right after it happened – you can check that out here if you haven’t already.

Anyway, I don’t want to talk about the UNLV drama specifically today. Instead, I want to talk about what it catalyzed: around the country, seemingly all at once, players began redshirting after four games. This happens often, of course, but there was something… different, about this event. It was all about NIL.

Today, we’re exploring this new phenomenon in college sports, the NIL redshirt. Why’s it happening? What to players stand to gain by redshirting in the NIL era? Perhaps most importantly, is there an end in sight to this sort of thing?

We’ll touch on all of that today. Let’s get into it.

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