I have a hard time understanding why they'd do this.
Not a question of why. More a question of how they can legally restrict it.
Dam broke, and the NCAA 's model just doesn't hold up in a lot of ways. Anything that restricts earning is going to be very difficult to enforce going forward.
It's a completely broken system from top to bottom and they (the NCAA) have nobody to blame but themselves for putting it off this long to make changes to keep up with the ever-changing landscape. This is the hell we all live in now.
People up here in Washington are feeling the brunt of this after an absolutely insane 10 days for the WSU Cougars football team; they lost 11/22 (28 players total) starters to the portal, including their starting QB for the second year in a row, lost their OC, DC and most recently the HC. And they still have a bowl game to play - by the time they suit up it may be a practice squad taking the field. WSU may be a unique situation because of the uncertainty of the PAC 12 on top of all this, but this stuff just keeps coming and coming, man. I don't know how you stop it either.
And to top it all off you have the Big Ten and the SEC trying to gobble up all the money from television. Nice little cherry.