“Show me the money!” – Tom Cruise as Jerry Maguire in the film “Jerry Maguire”

This time of year has garnered the nickname “talkin’ season” since that is about all fans, coaches and players of college sports can do until they can settle things on the field or court.

But calling it talkin’ season is so passé. Call it “labor regulations season” now.

Doesn’t really carry the same cachet, does it? Yet, labor regulations are all the rage today.

How did we get here? For a long time, college athletes were prohibited by the NCAA – the association in charge of creating and enforcing the rules for most major college sports – from receiving almost any form of payment other than cost-of-living stipends.

But in the past several decades, the money in college athletics has grown to the point where elite coaches now make over $10 million a year, and college athletic departments could run a small city with the revenue they collect.

University of Texas Athletics might even be able to fund a colony on Mars with its revenue.

By comparison, growth in player stipends was nowhere near matching the money athletic departments were pulling in.

When a court case ruling led the NCAA to remove its prohibition against college athletes receiving compensation from outside sources, money began flowing to athletes in the form of name, image and likeness (NIL) payments.

This led to the unregulated, wild West scenario of the last couple of years with some players entering the transfer portal after each season and transferring to the highest bidder.

In this case the bidders were financial boosters of university athletic programs but not the universities themselves since the universities were still not allowed to negotiate contracts with their athletes.

This May the NCAA agreed to settle another lawsuit and allow college athletic departments to share up to $20.5 million of its revenue with their athletes and require any outside NIL contracts for athletes to go through an approval process to make sure the athletes are not paid above what the private market says they should earn.

In effect, the settlement allows colleges to pay athletes directly, not as employees but more like independent contractors, and creates a salary cap by which the colleges must abide while also trying to limit the ability of boosters to create sweetheart NIL deals to hoard talented players.

Nevertheless, few stakeholders seem happy now as addressing one problem seems to create three more. Colleges can sign players to multi-year contracts with buyouts to keep other programs from stealing their players away, a condition coaches desired.

However, there are differing interpretations of the rules about when players’ NIL deals do or do not count toward the $20.5 million salary cap, leading to accusations by coaches and fanbases that rival schools are flouting the rules.

The players, particularly elite players, likely preferred the wild West model where their NIL earning potential was essentially unlimited.

After the May settlement, some now argue the players should be hired as employees and have the right to unionize and collectively bargain if the NCAA is going to be allowed to limit their potential earnings.

The NCAA itself has been begging Congress for years to pass a law to create an exemption for the NCAA from antitrust laws to prevent college athletes from being able to form a union. With Congress dragging its feet, President Donald Trump is now floating the idea of an executive order on the topic.

ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Dan Murphy were provided a draft of the potential executive order. It would direct the U.S. Secretary of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board to make a ruling about if college athletes could be considered employees.

How much of an effect this would have, if any, is unknown and would end up mired in legal challenges no matter the decision.

Frankly, there is no great option to move forward. The days of getting a scholarship and a stipend are over whether you believe that to be good or bad.

Personally, I have little interest in seeing player strikes in college sports, but I also do not think it is fair to limit an adult’s ability to earn money. I think I would reluctantly prefer the wild West model. Coaches may hate it, but that’s why we pay them the big bucks.

If you don’t enjoy following labor regulations season, my eight-year-old daughter enjoys watching the American Kennel Club’s canine agility and diving competitions for her summer sports viewing. I think those athletes are mainly paid in kibble and belly rubs.