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The new ‘Wild West’ of college athletics

Since the NCAA’s inception in 1906, student-athletes could not earn any profit off of their performance or popularity.

But two years ago, that all changed.

Marquette law professor Matt Mitten, who also serves as the executive director of the National Sports Law Institute, mentioned the change took place when an NCAA Working Group proposed that all three divisions should have a name, image and likeness policy, commonly referred to as NIL.

Through the mixture of new state laws and NCAA rule changes, this significant shift in the college sports empire was etched into its 115-year-old history July 1 of this year.