So I'll come in with a view that seems to be against the consensus here. I think it was pretty silly that a football player's (or any other athlete) roommate could get paid for sponsored Instagram posts if they have sufficient followers to justify that, while the athlete can't because of antiquated NCAA rules.
Sure it opens up opportunities for corruption, but do you think that's not already happening at many schools that are less scrupulous than us? It's better to have it legal and out in the open, IMO. I'm not pounding the table for NIL to happen, but I think at the margin it's an improvement over the prior situation.
People are very worried about parity, but it's not like we have parity right now. I don't have data on this but it sure feels like the top recruits are converging more than in the past on the top few schools (Alabama, Clemson, OSU, Georgia, Oklahoma). I've heard the case that this is due to recruits talking to each other on social media and meeting up together at football camps so basing it less on individual coach relationships, more on who produces the most NFL prospects. I could make other arguments, who knows, but given the current state of affairs it's hard for me to see there being LESS parity in college football after this. I could be wrong, we will see.
But I don't think this will ruin college sports, it will simply continue the trajectory of it gradually becoming more and bigger money and closer to professional sports (at least in the big-money ones like CFB and CBB) over time.
PS the "omg they'll have to pay taxes how can they figure out how to do that" is silly, it's no different from any HS or college student that earns more than $12k doing a job.
PPS the ones that make the most off of this won't only be top football players, it'll also be the attractive female athletes that can now compete with the other Instagram model types out there and go do deals with apparel companies, fitness, food and diet stuff, etc. Trevor Lawrence has 981k followers on IG, but Olivia Dunne (LSU gymnast) actually has 1.1M.