College AD suggests ‘acquisition fee’ could fix some transfer portal problems

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The athletic director at a mid-sized school that’s making a splash this season has a modest proposal for taming what many say is a transfer-portal system run amok in college sports.

Sean Frazier, the AD at Northern Illinois — remember, the team that beat national finalist Notre Dame earlier this season — is talking about a “talent acquisition fee.”

When schools sign players from other teams, they would pay those teams a fee in exchange for the player. It’s not that different from the way transactions go down with what are known as “transfer fees” in European soccer.

It’s an idea that Frazier, admittedly, is still sketching out on cocktail napkins. But he thinks it might help the small guys sustain their programs while adding transparency to deals involving some of the 11,000-plus football players across all divisions who enter the portal — the terms of some of those life-changing transactions themselves pecked out on cell phones in the middle of the night.

“At the end of the day, the kid deserves the compensation and support,” Frazier said in an interview with The Associated Press at the NCAA convention this week. “But the institution, to keep the cycle going, they deserve something as well. We’re not in the situation to continue to do that if we keep losing our best and brightest.”

Even with success, challenges come for mid-sized schools like NIU

Buoyed by that win over Notre Dame, and a steady string of success over the years, Frazier’s school recently announced it was moving its football program from the Mid-American into the Mountain West Conference starting in 2026.

The Mountain West, with champion Boise State in the College Football Playoff this season, is arguably the most formidable of the so-called Group of Five conferences. There are also 129 schools in the…

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Author : NBC Sports

Publish date : 2025-01-16 22:52:00

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