Bill a step toward compensating collegiate athletes

It’s been a busy time for state Sen. Barry Finegold.

Fresh off conducting a virtual lesson about the Holocaust with members of the Duxbury High School football team, who trivialized that horrific episode in Jewish history, along with inserting other anti-Semitic language into their play-calling system, the Andover Democrat decided in the midst of March Madness to renew his call for college athletes’ compensation.

In 2019, college sports programs generated $18.9 billion through ticket sales, television contracts, apparel deals and merchandise sales, according to the NCAA. A portion of that money goes to participating colleges and universities, which helps pay those exorbitant coaches’ salaries and also cover the cost of the many nonrevenue sports.

But per NCAA rules, none of that cash trickles down to the providers of these services, the individual players.

It’s a funding formula Finegold insists needs to change.

Finegold modeled his legislation after California’s

Fair Pay to Play Act, which passed that state’s Legislature in 2019. Florida enacted a similar bill last year.

This is the second legislative session in which Finegold has pitched his bill, but given the current national climate, he believes it’s more relevant now than ever.

“There’s a lot of talk right now about equity and fairness; most of these athletes are from lower socioeconomic status,” Finegold told the Boston Herald in a recent interview.

“So many end up leaving school early, not getting the full benefit of college and hoping for a professional career, but that can be a tough road to hoe.”

Finegold’s bill would allow the state’s collegiate studentathletes to earn compensation from the use of their name, image or likeness, without affecting that student’s scholarship eligibility — currently prohibited by NCAA rules.

It would also prevent athletes from losing their college eligibility if drafted by professional sports teams, give student-athletes the right to hire agents, and establish a “catastrophic sports injury fund” to compensate student-athletes who suffer career-ending injuries.

According to the Herald, the most recent NCAA data show the graduation rate among student-athletes has slowly risen in the past two decades, with roughly 90% of student-athletes who started college in 2013 earning degrees.

But there is still a significant racial gap in graduation rates for Black athletes, with about 73% earning degrees last year, according to the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport.

In October of 2019, the NCAA’s board voted in favor of allowing students to receive compensation for the use of their name, image and likeness, but the precise details and timeline for implementing that decision still hasn’t been finalized.

We agree with the spirit of Finegold’s effort, even if it’s somewhat of a legislative end-around.

The senator’s bill seems implicitly tailored towards male athletes, especially football and basketball players.

Athletes in other major sports like baseball and hockey already can be drafted by professional teams and still maintain their college eligibility until they sign a contract.

Currently, that’s not the case in college football or basketball, but any pro-caliber basketball player likely wouldn’t stay in school long enough to benefit from any endorsements.

But passage of Finegold’s bill could serve to prompt other states to approve similar laws — and in doing so mount a full-court press on the NCAA to do the right thing.

That, along with encouraging our congressional delegation to work with other like-minded House and Senate colleagues to exact their influence on the NCAA at the federal level, constitutes a workable two-tiered approach.

Players representing these highly recognized Division I collegiate sports teams deserve some measure of the millions paid in TV contracts and other revenue-generating deals sanctioned by the NCAA.

It’s just a matter of pursuing the most expeditious path to reach that end.