There’s something brewing that’s more insidious to college athletics than NIL or the transfer portal.

It’s something that could undercut the integrity of the game and ruin it for athletes who play the sport for its pure enjoyment.

It’s like a cancer that’s starting to spread with no known cure.

I’m talking about sports college betting, particularly proposition betting on individual athletes.

We all saw and heard about its effects first-hand through March Madness and watched it peak with the championship games for both men and women.

The phenomenon of Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark made her must-watch TV, with viewership records being set whenever she played and her drawing power spiked during NCAA championship week.

But casinos and online betting sites used her as a magnet for prop betting — where bettors, in this case, could wager on whether she would go over or under projected points scored, 3-point makes, assists, rebounds, etc.

DraftKings Network, for instance, published on April 6 — the day before the women’s championship — a headline that read, “The final game of Clark’s career comes with plenty of chances for wagering. We take a look at some of those available.”

The site then listed odds from its sportsbook, including odds one on whether Clark would score at least 32.5 points and another on whether she would score over 40.

Prop betting became such an issue that NCAA President Charlie Baker voiced his concern during Final Four week, calling it “enormously problematic” for college athletes.

Baker has been pushing for states with legal wagering to ban betting on individual performances for college athletes.

“We’re kind of in the top of the first inning on this one,” Baker said in an Associated Press article. “And I think it’s really important for us to recognize this is going to be a challenging issue. We really need to take seriously the fact that student-athletes are surrounded by a huge percentage of their classmates and schoolmates who bet on sports, which is a problem all by itself.”

The article also mentioned that Baker had posted a statement on social media during the middle of March Madness expressing concerns about threats to the integrity of competition and harassment of athletes by bettors angry with their results.

The AP writer, Aaron Beard, quoted a player — North Carolina’s Armando Bacot — as a victim harassment for betting-related issues.

“I thought I played pretty good last game,” Bacot said before a Sweet 16 loss to Alabama. “But I looked at my DMs, and I got, like, over 100 messages from people telling me I sucked and stuff like that because I didn’t get enough rebounds.”

The game has already taken hits with point shaving in college basketball that go back to the 1950s, with a wide-ranging point-shaving scandal that involved seven schools. There have been point-shaving scandals reported as recently as 2010.

In the professional basketball ranks, there’s an investigation ongoing for a Toronto Raptors player. Years before, an NBA referee admitted to betting on games he officiated and made calls to affect the margin of victory.

So where does it stop and how deep can it go?

Could more players be approached like so many have in the past, especially since college players are more susceptible to being bribed since they make much less than pros do?

Could it reach the support staff level, where 3-point lines can be fudged — that already happened in the women’s tournament, though it was apparently an honest mistake — the 10-foot height can be altered or the ball could be slightly deflated?

Could it stoop to the level of statisticians, who credit (or don’t credit) players with rebounds, assists, steals and turnovers — which is at the heart of prop betting?

The concern is that this is almost impossible to police or stop because of the ease in which sites can be accessed and the businesses that prey upon human nature.

It’s a slippery slope where everything could come cascading down, ruining the enjoyment for the college athlete such as Bacot and many others.

In name, image, likeness and the transfer portal, college athletes use it to their advantage; in prop betting the college athlete is the one being used.

I’m with the NCAA president on this one. Just leave the student-athletes alone and let them play with a peace of mind, free of trolling, threats and enticements.