Charlotte Wilder
Charlotte Wilder covers sports as a journalist and commentator, with a particular focus on college athletics and the money now moving through it, including name...
“You have to be delusional to be an athlete at the D1 or pro level. You have to believe that you're better than everybody else and that you will win a national championship, even though the odds are so slim. Otherwise, how could you do it? You kind of have to lie to yourself a little bit.”
Marketplace All-in-One · September 2026
The panel was discussing whether name-image-likeness money has piled unfair pressure onto college athletes. Wilder pushed back on the premise — pressure is the job, she argued, and the self-belief required to compete at that level is not rational in the first place. She went on to say some of that pressure is welcome, up to the point where it stops being motivating.
Transcript
…are able to make way more money on the internet than they ever could in an entry-level job or a job even later on in their career. And so I think that there's just inherent pushback and it makes these people feel uncomfortable that these students are feeling empowered and can make this much money.
…must have felt so much pressure. And I think about today, if that were to happen, first of all, it would be amazing if our team made it far in March Madness today. But those players would also have to worry about brand deals on top of winning the game. And it just feels like so much pressure.
I think at the same time, though, you know, we're talking about pressure. Like that is what these athletes have learned to do. That's their job. You know, whether that's fair or not, or whether the vitriol online is definitely not fair, something has to be done about that. But that's why these are very competitive people who are playing a sport to win. They are playing a sport to bring a national championship to their college. You have to be delusional to be an athlete at the D1 or pro level. You have to believe that you're better than everybody else and that you will win a national championship, even though the odds are so slim. Otherwise, how could you do it? You kind of have to lie to yourself a little bit. And so I think some of that pressure to these athletes is welcomed to a certain extent. It depends on the individual as to where that line of pressure goes from being motivating to unhealthy, I think.
What do you all think are the potential positives of NIL for students? Obviously, besides the money.
Yeah, I think it's one, the financial empowerment aspect. As you mentioned, they're setting themselves up for success, even if their chances of going pro fall through by the time they graduate or leave university. I think there's that. I also think that even beyond just earning more capital…
I guess you could argue too, it does teach them about business. You know, you can get a business degree, but you're also getting a practical business degree in terms of managing money and having a team of people around you. So maybe that's an aspect of it.
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