This week, hundreds of outraged Alabama football fans are saying that student athletes’ ability to profit from their name, image and likeness — otherwise known as NIL, is ruining college football.

This response follows an email sent out earlier this week by Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne urging fans to “fight back” to keep the team competitive amid NIL wars with rivals.

In the email, Byrne said “Bama Nation” could help with this objective by purchasing a membership for “Yea Alabama,” the university’s NIL entity.

Membership starts at $18 a month for non-students and goes all the way up to $150 a month.

“The good news is when Yea Alabama was created last year, the focus was on providing our fans with a legitimate product rather than booster inducements,” Byrne’s email reads.

“A subscription to Yea Alabama isn’t about the now; it’s about the future. It’s about roster retention for future seasons – keeping our legends in Crimson.”

“It’s about attracting and developing the best recruits in the country to represent the script A. You being a part of the team has never been more important.”

Fans have had a largely negative response to the email.

In a post to Facebook yesterday, AL.com asked fans “What do you think of Greg Byrne’s plea to Alabama fans to ‘fight back’ to help Crimson Tide stay competitive in college football’s NIL era?”

As of Dec. 19, the post has received over 1,200 responses.

“Laughable if it wasn’t so sad!” wrote Traci Ware.

“College football is ruined until they get this under control. What a joke. I personally am not willing to give one more dime, it already costs too much!”

“The Pay to Play program is going to be the downfall not only in Sports but Education as well!” wrote Jim DeFoor.

“What happened to playing for the School you love?” asked Mary Isbell.

“What happened to playing for fun and scholarship? I no longer enjoy college football and the show out players. I Stopped attending. I will probably stop watching on tv.”

“With Saban seeing this coming and stepping away, BAMA has changed this year. Not looking good.”

In the most liked comment, Dena Boggs summed her thoughts up in a few short words: “College football is ruined.”

Over 100 people agreed with Boggs.

But some fans took more of a middle ground in the conversation.

“I think it’s necessary,” wrote George Sandler.

“Like or not we are in a new age of college football. Players are going where they can make money. We need to do our part.”

“Having said all of that, I am not a fan of the new way of doing things. The NCAA needs to make some changes to the current system. First of all, in my opinion, a player should be able to only transfer once, maybe twice. That’s it.”

“Secondly, the portal needs to open after all bold names, and playoff games. Third, there needs to be a serious ramifications for these colleges who are recruiting players from other teams during the season.”

“And finally, it still should be important to these athletes to get an education. You can’t play football, baseball or anything else forever. I think I even know these kids were making money hand over fist, education still should be paramount.”

“Of course, the NCAA won’t do anything because they’re a bunch of spineless wimps. But they need to or else the state of college football is going to be one where you’ll never have continuity from year to year.”

What are your thoughts on NIL and Byrne’s request?

Visit the AL.com Crimson Tide Facebook page to let us know!