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The Indiana Hoosiers and head coach Curt Cignetti came seemingly out of nowhere to win a college football national championship a year ago.
And NIL contributions from alumni such as Mark Cuban were a big part of the program’s rapid ascent from afterthought to champion. However, despite that fact, Cignetti has major concerns about where NIL could lead the future of the sport.
In fact, according to Cignetti, he believes that unchecked NIL could prove to be an existential threat in the not-too-distant future.
Curt Cignetti Is Worried About Unregulated NIL Killing College Football
Cignetti recently spoke with members of the media ahead of an annual booster event in Borden, Ind and suggested that college football, and college athletics on the whole, could be on the verge of complete collapse in the coming years due to the lack of regulation surrounding the NIL marketplace.
“Universities won’t be able to survive. College football won’t exist the way we’re going right now.”
At the Hoosiers at Huber’s event last night, Curt Cignetti commented on the current state of the NIL market. He didn’t give an explicit opinion, but made clear that change is… pic.twitter.com/SUcCYevo3O
— Colin McMahon (@ColinMcMahon31) May 28, 2026
“The market is pretty expensive — it’s scary. It’s scary,” Cignetti said via The Hoosier‘s Colin McMahon. “… I think players should get paid. But something’s going to have to be done in the next 12 to 24 months, or universities might not be able to handle this. College football won’t exist the way we’re going right now.”
Cignetti’s comments came just one day after Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz admitted that he and other coaches would not follow any NCAA rules regarding NIL payments unless the NCAA could actually enforce its own rules without a court stepping in.
Without some sort of intervention from Congress, it’s hard to see anything changing in the near future. And, as Cignetti says, that could be a scary sign for the majority of programs across the country.