One Question Mailbag - The Portal And NIL

I started to respond to a question on Slack and what I was writing started to wander into "this should be a full article" territory so... I'm making it a full article. We call those situations a "One Question Mailbag" around here. First the question, then my answer:

I need a portal 101. Is it correct that each (big) team basically has $20MM now to divvy up, kinda like a fantasy salary budget? If so, why would someone be willing to pay a lot more than us for a kicker? Are their other positions all locked up somehow?

~IAgreeWithSP

I'm gonna have to fly through some parts of this to get to my full answer, and it's going to be painful for me, but if I don't force myself to fly through the background this will become 3,000 words. So... here's the background: