What Is the Reason Behind College Athletes Entering NCAA Transfer Portal Despite Having No Years of Eligibility Left?

$4.8 million. While the number appears the same as the average salary in the MLB, it isn’t. This is the amount Duke sensation Cooper Flagg has walked away with from the NIL market. The idea of a freshman in college making such numbers had never even been imagined, and to top it off, he isn’t even the highest NIL earner. That spot belongs to Arch Manning, nephew to the NFL Quarterback brothers, Peyton and Eli.

So, as college athletes continue to usher in this NIL era of opportunities, they enjoy the ability to enter the transfer portal and get paid according to their growth during the past season. As of Monday, a total of 2,320 men’s basketball players had entered the 2025 transfer portal, according to Verbal Commits, about 11.3% more than last year’s number. A change of times as the college athletes can now stay in college and focus on their development as a player, and also their education, while not being in a hurry to rush to the pros. The deserved compensation surely helps.

The NIL market has become so lucrative that players are now pondering staying in college and exhausting their 4-year eligibility before going pro. Others, however, have become so attracted that they want to come back for a 5th year to explore these opportunities.

One such athlete is ex-Auburn player, Chad Baker-Mazara. A part of their 2024 Final Four run, Mazara was expected to return to Auburn for his final season but opted to enter the transfer portal instead. While it makes you scratch your head, Chad’s case is far from rare as multiple other athletes who had reached the end of their collegiate careers have also followed in his footsteps.

The list includes Clemson’s Ian Schieffelin, Syracuse’s Jyare Davis, Lucas Taylor and Jaquan Carlos and a trio of North Carolina State players in Ben Middlebrooks, Brandon Huntley-Hatfield and Dontrez Styles, to name some. So, what’s driving this trend?

Diego Pavia paves the way for entering NCAA transfer portal

Diego Pavia played at New Mexico Military Institute, a junior college, from 2020 to 2021, then New Mexico State from 2022 to 2023 before joining Vanderbilt for the 2024 season. His first season at Vanderbilt was set to be his last in college but that wasn’t the case as he decided to sue the NCAA in November of 2024 in a case that has swept the ground from under their feet.

Pavia argued that the organization’s rule that counts a player’s time in junior college toward his overall years of NCAA eligibility is a violation of antitrust law and was unfairly limiting his ability to benefit from his name, image and likeness.“We’re not saying the NCAA can’t have eligibility requirements,” Ryan Downton, Pavia’s attorney told ESPN. “But a junior college season shouldn’t be the equivalent of an NCAA season when the junior college season has no meaningful opportunities to earn NIL, no television exposure. They take other athletes [who are playing somewhere outside of high school] and don’t hold those seasons against them.” 

Campbell, a federal judge in Tennessee agreed that the NCAA eligibility rules places unreasonable constraints on the NCAA D-1 football and related athletes’ commercial opportunities and emphasized that eligibility rules must be evaluated as economic restraints on trade in today’s world. The ruling left the organization’s eligibility rules open to bashing and became a cause for instability across college sports.

In a statement to ESPN, the NCAA expressed their disappointment: “The NCAA is disappointed in today’s ruling and wants all student-athletes to maximize their name, image and likeness potential without depriving future student-athletes of opportunities. Altering the enforcement of rules overwhelmingly supported by NCAA member schools makes a shifting environment even more unsettled. The NCAA is making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, but a patchwork of state laws and court opinions make clear that partnering with Congress is essential to provide stability for the future of all college”

After Pavia’s injunction was granted, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors approved an extra year of eligibility only in 2025-26 for student-athletes who previously competed at a non-NCAA school for one or more years (which includes junior colleges) and would have exhausted their eligibility after the 2024-25 season.

Paving the path for many other athletes like Chad Baker-Mazara, who had attended Northwest Florida State College, a junior college, during the 2022-23 season, thus making him eligible for another season of NIL opportunities.

What’s next for NCAA?

The NCAA has indicated plans to appeal Pavia’s court ruling, which leaves the long-term impact of the decision up in the air. For now, junior college and NAIA athletes can extend their careers, but the future’s murky. While this doesn’t apply to (Ex)Clemson Tigers guard Ian Schiefflin, he too entered the portal as he posted a tweet that left fans scratching their heads.

“While I am pursing my options on the professional level I have been advised, due to pending NCAA cases, to enter the portal on the very outside chance more eligibility is allowed.” the tweet read. So while a decision in his favor would give him the freedom to explore the portal without restrictions from his college, it appears more likely to be a hail mary.

Another significant component of the House Settlement is that schools who opt in must follow a roster limit structure rather than the current scholarship limit structure used at the NCAA DI level.

Rather than limiting the number of scholarship student-athletes on a roster, schools will be permitted to offer a scholarship to every player on a team if they choose to do so. The NCAA will limit the maximum number of student-athletes allowed on a roster; under this new model, every athlete can receive an athletic scholarship, but the schools are not required to provide a scholarship to each student-athlete.

If the rule does change and extends the eligibility past 5 years, it raises several questions related to the opportunities it takes away from athletes coming out of high school. With a trend of experience being preferred evident in the NCAA this March Madness, opportunities for a freshman are already limited at the top programs. An extension of college careers would further take away from the opportunities that are available to players who might not be the centerpieces. The House settlement further caps these opportunities and raises several questions for the upcoming class of freshman. One thing that’s for sure? The NIL has shaken courthouses across the country.