The buzzer tolls

Remember when the NCAA and leading California universities warned the state of unceremonious expulsion from the pristine glories of collegiate competition should it dare taint its studentathletes with the sort of base monetary considerations that drive the colleges themselves? Well, never mind. The NCAA’s Board of Governors clambered down from its tower of bluster this week by voting unanimously to allow college athletes to “benefit” from endorsement deals. While the board populated the decision with weasel words designed to limit and obscure its practical force, it was nevertheless a landmark surrender of the organization’s longheld refusal to permit compensation of its young workforce.

This was no outbreak of sportsmanship on the NCAA’s part. It was a capitulation forced by state Sen. Nancy Skinner’s bill to allow California’s college athletes to profit from the use of their names, images and likenesses in direct contravention of NCAA rules, passed by overwhelming, bipartisan majorities in the Legislature and signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last month.

Skinner, DBerkeley, started a streak: New York, New Jersey and Florida have already enacted similar laws, with parallel proposals being considered in other states and Congress. The injustice of what former UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi called “a billiondollar industry built on the backs of college athletes” is so glaring that the cause has been embraced across the spectrum from Newsom to his rightwing Florida counterpart, Ron DeSantis.

Among other caveats, the Board of Governors required that any benefits derived by players be “in a manner consistent with the collegiate model,” whatever that means. Meanwhile, coaches and colleges rake in obscene rewards, and the NCAA is still going after one California school for giving its athletes too much money for books.

The upshot is that the NCAA and states such as California, whose law doesn’t take effect until 2023, have much negotiating to do. But here’s hoping this is the beginning of the end of a racket.