The concept of the Transfer Portal for college athletics was initially meant to give student-athletes an opportunity to find more playing time, better system fits, or an ability to escape toxic environments without being punished by losing a season of eligibility.
Now, the Transfer Portal is an unlimited free agency, and the number of total entrants has skyrocketed in recent seasons.
It never made sense to punish players for transferring, particularly when coaches have always had the ability to leave without any recourse. But, I think most fans of the sport would agree that the portal has now completely jumped the shark. Thousands of college football players enter the portal every offseason, and some players make it an annual tradition. The impact that has on fan interest and graduation rates will be interesting to study in the coming years.
How big has the Transfer Portal gotten since its inception?
The Transfer Portal was birthed in 2018, and while plenty of players took advantage of it, the initial portal entry numbers from the first few years of its existence pale in comparison to what we are seeing now. Why? NIL payments became legal in July of 2021, and the portal went from an avenue for athletes to seek better opportunities to unlimited free agency and the Wild West.
Players now leave good situations to seek the highest possible payday. They sell themselves to the highest bidder, turning themselves into mercenaries for hire and rejecting opportunities for immortality at their current schools.
There's perhaps no better example of that than WR Isaiah Bond. Bond left Alabama for Texas following the 2023 season, leaving behind a lasting legacy in Tuscaloosa stemming from his game-winning touchdown reception to beat Auburn in the Iron Bowl on a miraculous 4th-and-31 conversion to chase a bag and a Lamborghini in Austin. Bond, through a disappointing season and off-field troubles, went undrafted in the 2025 NFL Draft. He left Alabama as a projected first or second-round pick.
NIL has significantly driven up the number of Transfer Portal entrants
Since NIL became legal and opened the door for pay-to-play in college sports, there's been a drastic increase in yearly portal entrants in college football:
2018: 1561
2019: 1695
2020: 1583
2021: 2531
2022: 2918
2023: 3700
2024: 3843
After three years of stagnant numbers, the Transfer Portal exploded in 2021 with the beginning of NIL. There were nearly 1000 more portal entries in 2021 than in 2020, and that number has steadily grown every year since then.
It will be interesting to track moving forward what the impact of revenue-sharing in college sports has on the portal. Players will be entering into legal contracts with schools, and the language of those contracts will be fascinating to watch.
For example, Texas Tech landed 5-star OT Felix Ojo recently, agreeing on a 3-year, $5.1 million pact to lure the talented prospect to Lubbock. Is that three-year pact binding? Is there a buyout if he decides to enter the portal after a year or two?
NIL had a seismic shift on the Transfer Portal, pushing more and more student-athletes to seek a bigger payday from other programs. Revenue-sharing is the next seminal moment in the sport, and when the winter portal window opens in December, we'll get a better idea of its impact.