College sports and ‘amateurism’ become the new ‘professional’ as an NFL player fights to return to school

Dae’Quan Wright, the former Cleveland Browns tight end, may soon make history. The former NFL player’s stint in pro football is coming to an end after being waived, but that may not be the last time he dons a football uniform, as he’s likely to return to college sports at LSU this year.

Wright, a former Ole Miss tight end who went undrafted in the 2026 NFL Draft, signed with the Philadelphia Eagles before joining the Cleveland Browns. After receiving a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit challenging the NCAA’s eligibility rules, he entered the transfer portal and reached an agreement to return to college and reunite with his former coach Lane Kiffin. The 22-year old’s aspiration to return to America’s favorite amateur sport signals just how big college football has become.

The move would have been difficult to imagine under the traditional conception of college sports. Professional athletes have joked about it in the past, with even all-time NBA great LeBron James teasing at a potential college sports journey post-retirement—albeit as more of a joke than an actual plan. But the legal and financial changes that have transformed college athletics in recent years have made the distinction between “amateur” and “professional” increasingly difficult to maintain.

The NCAA is now fighting to preserve that distinction even as college athletes receive unprecedented compensation—and Wright’s case has become a spark in exposing the difference.

Since Wright’s arrangement with LSU became public, the fight over his eligibility has escalated quickly. The SEC, Big Ten, and other major conferences adopted rules this week banning athletes who signed professional contracts from returning to college rosters, a policy aimed squarely at players like Wright. A Dallas judge has since blocked the SEC from enforcing that ban against a group of athletes that includes Wright, though the NCAA has won reversals of similar restraining orders in other cases in the same week. The legal fight remains unresolved.

“Courts across the country granting relief to ineligible athletes who already had every opportunity to compete in college—sometimes without even having a hearing—are failing to appreciate the destabilizing effect their rulings are having on college sports,” the NCAA told Fortune in a statement.

Is college football really an “amateur” sport?

The association said Congress could address the issue by passing the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act , which it said would provide student-athletes with “a level playing field with rules that apply fairly to everyone.”

The legislation has advanced in Congress. The Senate Commerce Committee approved the Protect College Sports Act in June with bipartisan support, and the bill would establish a federal framework for NIL agreements while addressing eligibility, transfers and other parts of the college sports ecosystem.

“The lawyers bringing these cases seemingly won’t be satisfied until every professional athlete can treat college sports as a fallback option,” the NCAA said.

But Wright’s case is also illustrating why the NCAA’s argument about amateurism is becoming harder to square with the economics of the modern college engine.

Professor Victoria Jackson, a sports historian and co-director of the Great Game Lab at Arizona State University , said the NCAA’s description of college sports as a “fallback” misses the larger point of the industry.

“I think that’s among the most important questions,” Jackson told Fortune of whether athletes have adequate protections as they navigate the commercialized college sports system. “Taking a step back and thinking about the kind of unique position of college sports is useful.”

Jackson said college sports are now part of a global economy in which elite athletes routinely move between developmental and professional systems. In that context, she said, college sports are not necessarily a lesser alternative to professional competition.

“These are not fallbacks—it’s that they are good places, full stop,” she said. “The competitiveness of college sports is at the top of the world. But now also the compensation opportunities are among the most competitive in the world.”

For some athletes, Jackson explained, playing in the NCAA could potentially be more lucrative than playing professionally in another country or league. Wright, for example, had signed a three-year, $3,125,000 contract with the Eagles before being acquired by the Browns—giving the undrafted Gen Z Wright an average salary of $1,041,667. But the House v. NCAA settlement from 2025 now allows schools to participate in revenue-sharing— allowing colleges to directly pay athletes a share of up to 22% of the “average shared revenue” generated by power conference revenue. Louisiana State University—the college football program Wright is expected to join—is one of the schools enrolled in revenue-sharing, and the expected cap for the 2026-27 season is $21.3 million.

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LSU declined a request to comment from Fortune regarding Wright’s return.

“Depending on what kind of package you can get for yourself,” Jackson said, “it might be more lucrative for someone to play in the college space as long as they can, or even try to return to it, than it would be to play professionally.”

In other words, college athletes are no longer just receiving scholarships while forbidden from monetizing their athletic fame. For the largest programs, athletes can now receive a package that combines scholarships, NIL opportunities and direct revenue-sharing payments. But Jackson argues the compensation itself is not a new development.

“The scholarship is ...