You’re a recent college graduate who has been offered a job at a paper company. Good pay, nice benefits, but … once you accept, you can never freely go to another paper company that has better pay and nicer benefits.

Your future boss recruits you to a company. Then, after you sign up, the boss leaves for another company, but you’re stuck there for at least another year.

That was the sporting life in the pros and colleges.

Before Curt Flood’s protest, there was no challenge to Major League Baseball’s reserve clause, which bound a player to a team even after his contract expired. Before Dave McNally’s and Andy Messersmith’s grievances, players still were under reserve-clause restraints. Before Spencer Haywood’s case, a basketball player was not eligible for the NBA Draft until four years after his high school graduation. Before a recent Supreme Court ruling, a college athlete did not own his or her name, image or likeness.

It has been more than a generation that players in all major professional team sports have been free to find employment elsewhere after their contacts’ expiration, even collaborating with friends to form the next Avengers. Thanks to Haywood and subsequent other challenges, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James were able to bring their talents to the NBA as teenagers.

The progression was slower, but still impactful, at the college level. For too long, coaches could reap CEO-sized contracts while the players — limited by amateurism constraints — received only tuition, room and board. Need pizza money? Work a summer camp or call your parents.

Even the association of professionalism penalized a student-athlete’s amateur status. The University of Hawaii men’s volleyball team was forced to vacate its 2002 NCAA title because its best player was an unpaid member of a pro team in Europe preceding his UH stint. It did not matter that Costas Theocharidis was allowed to keep his status as the program’s only first-team All-American, or that the team in question was listed in UH’s media guide. Those were the rules (which no longer apply).

When a head coach departed for a more lucrative situation, his players were not allowed to also bolt without redshirting at the next school. And without a release, the player might not be entitled to a scholarship for another year.

But the rules have changed. Now players are permitted to transfer once in their career without redshirting.

In the past, teams were allowed to provide a training table to feed scholarship players during the season. In general, only football programs were able to afford the daily menu. But in recent years, training tables were renamed supplemental meals, and were available to all teams and players. In addition, all players were allowed snacks. That meant walk-ons no longer had to rely on teammates to smuggle food in paper cups.

With a push from a Supreme Court ruling, the NCAA is allowing student-athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness.

The changes — some made long ago, some recently — have balanced the power between the performers and the producers. There are flaws. Fans will have to buy a Russell Westbrook jersey for the fourth time in four years. They will lament that a player will not spend his entire career with the same team.

While the transfer portal has become the NCAA’s version of the free-agent market, the concern is that many applicants will not be able to land new scholarships. It’s musical chairs with too many okole.

But for all the concerns, student-athletes have earned the real-world experience. They have the opportunity to move freely between schools. They can benefit from their popularity. They receive cost-of-attendance allowances that enable them to buy the same essentials as any other student.

Student-athletes, like pro athletes, also are learning that in a supply-and-demand economy, not everyone will benefit equally. For athletes, the real world is not always pretty and freedom does have its price. But it is better than the way things were in the past.