I totally agree. The thing that gets lost on many is that NIL cannot be controlled by the NCAA or the schools because, technically, it is just the same as Nike or Adidas signing a contract with a pro player. The NFL does not control that. A player is free to sign a shoe contract with anyone he wants. That is the same in college with NIL. The NCAA and schools cannot prohibit a player from talking to a potential sponsor. That was the whole point of the litigation that brought this about.
The difference is that in the NFL, the actual salary paid by the team is significant enough that the “NIL” deals are *generally* smaller. So a player in the NFL is not typically leaving as a free agent to a bigger market for sponsorship dollars (although, that does happen to some extent). In college, there is no official salary paid by the school, so the incentive structure of the NFL does not apply. If there were college salaries and contracts, then the tampering thing would make sense. But schools and the NCAA cannot enforce tampering against sponsors.
