Former Des Moines Register assistant sports editor Ira Lacher writes about the games and business of sports for various newspapers and magazines.

More than two decades ago, Jerry Seinfield laid it on the line for sports fans.

“Loyalty is kind of a hard thing to justify in the end,” the comedian, referring to professional athletes moving from team to team, told David Letterman in 1994. “Every year, it’s different guys, right? … You’re rooting for clothes, when you get right down to it. I’m rooting for an outfit. That’s what it’s come down to. I want my team’s clothes to beat the clothes from another city. Laundry. We’re screaming about laundry here.”

By that definition, regardless of how the NCAA refers to “student-athletes” at March Madness sites, too many Division I basketball players are merely paid professionals, shuttling from team to team via the transfer portal like passengers changing flights at hub airports. According to the online college basketball stats service SRCBB, just short of a third of players on this season’s men’s Elite Eight rosters – 38 out of 120 – had transferred at least once. 

Iowa led the pack with seven transfers, spearheaded by Bennett Stirtz, who enthused commentators from four TV networks with his stupendous basketball talents and aw-shucks attitude. Like ducklings, Stirtz and five teammates followed coach Ben McCollum from Drake, in whose clothes they advanced to the round of 32 last season. Wearing the clothes of Iowa this season, those players, plus Alvaro Folgueiras, who transferred from Robert Morris, shocked the NCAA men’s basketball establishment, reaching the Elite Eight before bowing to Illinois, which has four transfers.

At the end of last season, after McCollum jumped halfway across the state, Stirtz explained why he jumped with him along with teammates Tavion Banks, Kael Combs, Isaia Howard, Cam Manyawu, and redshirt (non-playing) Joey Matteoni. “Just wanted to stay loyal to him,” said Stirtz, who’d exchanged his Northwest Missouri State clothes for Drake duds, following McCollum to the Des Moines campus the season before. “I would love to have stayed at a school for four years,” Stirtz added, “but it just didn’t work out that way. It’s just the best opportunity for me and my family.”

Loyalty to coaches is admirable, for they are the ones who cajole players on how their talents and aspirations would perfectly fit at the U. In the old days, players and families trusted the men who assured them their sons could continue to play the sport they loved, to national recognition – and an eventual NBA contract – along with being exposed to higher education, even if they left school without earning a degree. But loyalty wasn’t always symbiotic: Coaches often betrayed the players by signing them, then leaving the school for greenback pastures, sometimes within weeks.

Certainly, a number of varsity players remain at the same schools throughout their five years of eligibility, some even graduating with degrees. But Division I basketball continues to include a great number of players who don’t.

Largely owing to a spate of legal action, the now-quaint notion of what the NCAA still touts as the “student-athlete” has been unceremoniously interred, at least in the power basketball conferences. Since the organization settled a lawsuit in June 2025, players can now be paid, legally and aboveboard. Any school can do it, but the schools in those conferences – Big Ten, Big XII, SEC, ACC, and Pac-12 – can most afford it. The cash, up to 22 percent of the institution’s average combined revenue from media rights, ticket sales, and sponsorships, was set at $20.5 million per school in 2025-26 and is to rise on a graduated scale over the next four years.

So, something far more tangible than a national spotlight and a free college education beckons for those who merit the attention. For example, it’s been reported that Folgueiras, last season’s Horizon League Player of the year, was paid “seven figures” to swap his blue, white, and red Robert Morris clothes for Iowa’s black and gold duds.

The growing number of players unleashed to follow the money carries with it an element of justified empowerment; after all, coaches have exercised that freedom seemingly forever. Kudos to Folgueiras, Stirtz, and all who take advantage of the opportunity to assure financial security for themselves and their families. But that leaves loyal fans who invest considerable time, emotion, and money jilted at the altar. 

However, there is a solution that would restore the stability the transfer portal obliterated when it took effect in the fall of 2018: 

Make signing a two-tier experience: A recruit could sign a traditional letter of intent to attend an institution or instead sign a personal-services contract with a coach. 

Here’s how each alternative would work:

Traditional Letter of Intent 

Under this once-standard model, a recruit becomes a traditional student-athlete:

• They receive from an institution a full-ride scholarship plus room and board to matriculate while playing a varsity sport. 
• They must make progress toward a degree, as determined by faculty and administration. 
• They also retain newfound rights such as being compensated for their name, image, and likeness (NIL) and being paid out of the compensation fund. If they don’t merit the largesse, they can work on or off campus, as students have done throughout the ages. 
• In exchange, they agree to remain at the school throughout their NCAA-determined eligibility. They could transfer to another school, as any student. But they would be ineligible to play varsity the season after they transfer. 

Personal-Services Contract 

Under this modern alternative, a recruit is not a student-athlete:

• They are an employee of a coach for a term equal to the player’s NCAA-determined eligibility. 
• They are not obligated in any way to attend any institution.
• They receive no financial benefit from any institution but are compensated out of the coach’s pocket and whatever NIL agreement they sign. 
• They can follow a coach anywhere, as long as each party wishes to continue the relationship. If either does not, they can attempt to transfer the contract to another coach for the remainder of the player’s eligibility. 
• If no agreement is reached, the player is compensated according to prearrangement, becomes a free agent, and can attempt to sign with another coach.

While not ideal, this two-tier system would at least give fans an idea of where the player’s loyalties lay.

A fan merely OK with rooting for the clothes could blissfully go on doing so and not fret about where their favorite players might turn up next season. 

But a fan dedicated to the university could know they wouldn’t need to waste their emotions on clothes wearers who don’t stay at a school long enough to learn its fight song. 

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Top photo is by George Rudy, available via Shutterstock.