PAY FINALLY IN PLAY
NCAA athletes soon will be able to make money on the side, but it’s only a first step
It didn’t take long for the
NCAA to start to bend.
And by January 2021, the organization is going to have to break.
Thanks to the California Fair Play to Pay Act that was signed into law in September (and will go into effect in 2023) and the several states — Maryland, New York and South Carolina, among others — coming up with similar bills, the NCAA had to take a hard look at its amateurism rules that hold back athletes from profiting on their likenesses.
As the world is changing and there are more ways for athletes to make money off their images, the NCAA has to adapt, too.
Late last month, the NCAA’s governing board voted unanimously to let college athletes be compensated. The decision led the organization to turn to leaders of Division I, II and III schools to determine how to add rules allowing student-athletes to hire agents, sign endorsements and more.
Each division has been asked to create new rules no later than January 2021.
The rule change will allow college athletes “to benefit from their name, image and likeness in a manner consistent with the collegiate model,” according to the NCAA, which has 1,100 member schools encompassing nearly 500,000 athletes.
So while the NCAA does seem to be taking the nudge from the states seriously, it hasn’t actually made any clear rules that will let athletes profit.
It’s a step in the right direction, but there is nothing to celebrate just yet.
Until there are defined rules in place with little gray area, this issue is going to continue to cause problems across the board.
The current collegiate model isn’t set up to let athletes benefit from their names, images or likenesses, so the NCAA needs to overhaul the current model to make this work.
The California bill is the most complete version of a rule that has been brought forward so far.
In essence, the new law requires colleges and universities to let students sell the rights to their names, images or likenesses. It also bars the NCAA from penalizing students or the schools they attend if they hire an agent or a lawyer to negotiate deals for them.
Athletes would be able to endorse products, make money with workout videos on social media, and charge for autographs. They wouldn’t be paid by the university to play, though. They could receive scholarships that cover the cost of education, but wouldn’t draw extra money from ticket sales.
So this isn’t a bill that says to just “pay the star players” by any means — though that seems to be what a lot of people think. It doesn’t hamper Title IX. It gives every athlete the same opportunity.
While some would benefit more — Jalen Hurts, Tua Tagovailoa, Cassius Winston and Markus Howard are some of the biggest names in sports right now — it’s not an unfair rule.
Not any more unfair than anything else in the NCAA, anyway.
According to Forbes, Texas A&M is the most valuable NCAA football program in the country. The NCAA doesn’t forbid it to make millions just because other schools near it — the University of Houston, TCU, Texas Tech — don’t bring in the same revenue.
So an athlete such as former UCLA gymnast Katelyn Ohashi, who went viral on social media with her floor routines last year, shouldn’t have her earnings limited because a gymnast at USC doesn’t draw the same attention or interest.
The law would let a star football player make money off signing autographs, and it also would let a women’s tennis player profit from appearing in a YouTube video about swing techniques.
Every other student on scholarship at a university already is allowed to make money off their likenesses. An engineering student can create an app and sell it. A music student can write a score a sell it. A journalism student can freelance for a publication and be paid.
There’s no reason an athlete shouldn’t be granted the same rights.
It’s good that the NCAA is starting to come around to that idea.
It’s bad that the organization needs committees, discussions and ongoing drama to figure out how to make this work under their archaic rules.
The NCAA has to look at its definition of amateurism and overhaul it to adapt to today’s world.
It’s unfortunate that it has taken this long for the group’s hand to be forced.
Slowly, but surely, things are changing.
The NCAA has the opportunity to truly be the organization it sought out to be by protecting its student-athletes and providing them with the best collegiate sports experiences it can.
Rules should be made to make things cleaner, easier and better for student-athletes.
Trying to keep things fair and equal is admirable, but taking away opportunities in the process defeats the purpose.
The NCAA has to constantly adapt and change to keep up, and thanks to several states applying pressure, the organization finally is doing that.
It has taken a step.
Now it has to take several more.