I'm going to push back a little bit on this. I don't think that 17,000 number (I'm assuming across all sports) is some new number that rose from 0 before the portal became a thing. If you compared that number to the number of student athletes from before the portal that simply washed out and quit their respective sport, while I'm sure it's probably a bit larger, I don't think it's some huge explosion.
Transfer Portal Turbulence Is On The Rise. Are College Sports Prepared? - RealResponse
Free agency. Endorsement deals. Trade deadlines. These hallmarks of professional sports have become untethered from the big leagues. Thanks to milestone rulings around the transfer portal and name, image and likeness (NIL) laws, player mobility and financial incentives are now embedded in the...www.realresponse.com
“More than 31,000 student-athletes entered the transfer portal in 2023 alone, with approximately 45% successfully moving to new schools. That means more than half did not land with a new team, leaving their athletic and academic careers in question.”
The only way you can argue against facts is with ignorance. The portal is now jeopardizing 1,000’s of student athletes academic future.
“In 2023 over 17,000 student-athletes that entered the transfer portal were left with no option but to never play competitively again.”
It's simply that most of the kids that would've been told there's no spot for them and been forced to silently move on are now "entering the portal" because that's what you do now and are showing up as orphans of the portal.
This year, with the FBS roster limits going into place, I think you could actually see a large increase in the number of football players that normally would have found a home being left out in the cold, but the portal, itself, is not the reason that's happening.
