NCAA Says It Will Allow College Athletes to Profit From Their Celebrity

The National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Board of Governors voted unanimously on Tuesday to allow college athletes to benefit from their name, image, and likeness as long as those benefits stay within the “collegiate model.” The vote came in response to a presentation made by a working group that had been appointed to advise the board on how to proceed in the face of a growing national movement.

Instead of issuing a final report at the meeting, as was the expectation when the Federal and State Legislation Working Group convened in May, the 19-member committee presented “principles and guidelines” along which the NCAA should address the question of name, image, and likeness. Included in the guidelines were recommendations to “maintain the priorities of education and the collegiate experience,” distinguish between “collegiate and professional opportunities,” and “protect the recruiting environment.”

The board’s decision comes a month after Gov. Gavin Newsom of California signed that state’s Fair Pay to Play Act into law, granting college athletes in California the right to profit from their name, image, and likeness starting in January 2023 — contrary to longstanding NCAA rules. That bill broke the dam, prompting lawmakers in a dozen other states to introduce similar legislation or indicate that they planned to. Taken as a whole, the California law and the pending bills across the nation threaten the NCAA’s definition of amateurism and its control over the athletes in big-time college-sports programs.

Even with the board’s vote, however, some observers were cautious about the impact and immediacy of any changes.

David Carter, an associate professor of clinical management and organization at the University of Southern California and the author of four books on sports business, said that the NCAA is “finally admitting to the obvious” but deferring on enacting new rules. “The NCAA has realized that the tides have moved,” Carter said, but added that the organization is most likely trying to change only fast enough to prevent the courts from getting involved.

Ramogi Huma, president of the College Athletes Players Association, who helped lobby for the California bill, said the downgrading of the working group’s presentation from “final report” to “update” to “internal review” exposes the working group as “the stall tactic it was designed to be.”

He added that the failure of the working group to deliver a comprehensive proposal should act as a “wake-up call” to lawmakers who were waiting for the NCAA’s reaction before acting.

Helen Drew, a sports-law professor at the University at Buffalo, also said that the NCAA didn’t have much choice given how many states had put forth legislation. But she added that the working group’s report didn’t reveal too much about the NCAA’s strategy going forward. “The big question, of course, is, Will this be enough to satisfy the states and the congressmen?” Drew said. “Or is it too late? Is the genie out of the bottle?”

Could Affect Recruiting

Two bills have been introduced in Florida — one by a Republican representative and one by a Democrat — and one in Pennsylvania could create an even greater logistical headache for the NCAA than the law in California. All three bills, if signed, would be enacted in 2020, before the January 2021 deadline the NCAA set for new rules in its statement.

Last week Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida said he would support legislation granting Florida college athletes the rights to their name, image, and likeness by 2020, but did not endorse either of the pending bills.

“There’s no doubt that perhaps those who are in greater position to benefit from the current structure don’t want the current structure to change,” said Dan Miller, co-sponsor of the Pennsylvania bill, in an interview with The Chronicle. “My hope is that Pennsylvania will follow California’s lead and help chart the future for what is this new relationship in a more fair relationship between the schools and the players, rather than Pennsylvania being the last to jump on the bus.”

A hang-up that many within the NCAA and some of its member colleges have pointed out is the disproportionate effect that name, image, and likeness rights could have on recruiting. If laws were passed state by state, that would create an intercollegiate-sports landscape where some colleges had a recruiting advantage because they would be able to offer endorsement opportunities to athletes.

Some federal legislation is in the works as well, with the “Student-Athlete Equity Act,” sponsored by Rep. Mark Walker, a North Carolina Republican. The bill is currently referred to the Ways and Means Committee in the U.S. House of Representatives. Rep. Anthony Gonzalez, an Ohio Republican and former football player at Ohio State University, plans to introduce federal legislation but previously stated that he was waiting for the working group’s report before doing so. And one Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Cory Booker, who played football at Stanford University, has released a comprehensive plan addressing college-athlete compensation, while some other candidates have voiced support for change.

In a statement released while the NCAA Board of Governors met, Representative Walker called out the financial disparity between the NCAA and the athletes it governs. “While they discuss whether or not to give basic publicity rights back to student-athletes, a pittance compared to their profits, they should do the right thing,” the statement reads. “Lawmakers across the country are watching closely, but not holding our breath.” Walker announced his intention to introduce an amendment to the College Affordability Act, making institutions comply with laws passed by individual states regarding name, image, and likeness.

Lawrence R. (Bubba) Cunningham, athletics director at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said that he talked with one of Representative Walker’s staff members two or three years ago about the legislation Walker has since introduced, and that he stressed at the time the benefits of tying sports participation to education.

“We all want to provide more resources to our students, and the more our students have the same opportunities as other students on campus, the better,” Cunningham said. “I just think that like every other process here, the devil is in the details. We’ve all passed rules that have had a negative consequence that we didn’t anticipate.”

During the working group’s presentation, the NCAA’s Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee released a statement of its own, cautioning against rushing forward with name, image, and likeness legislation for fear of negative effects on nonrevenue sports. In the statement, the students cite potential consequences such as unfair recruiting, difficulty in ethics monitoring, and inequity across sports. But the students agreed that something needed to change.

“The current rules surrounding name, image, and likeness stifle the ability for student-athletes to profit via professional development and entrepreneurship,” the statement reads. “While the association is doing something correctly, they have been wrong to not reform name, image, and likeness sooner.”

Wesley Jenkins is an editorial intern at The Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter @_wesjenks, or email him at wjenkins@chronicle.com.