NCAA approves: College athletes can make money
In a historic decision certain to transform the fortunes of college athletes across the country, NCAA officials voted Wednesday to let players profit from their names and images, a movement propelled by California.
The move abolishes the organization’s longheld rule prohibiting college players from being paid to endorse products, earn money as social media influencers or license their images, and even raise money for charity. The change applies to schools that compete in Division I, II and III athletics.
“This is an important day for college athletes since they all are now able to take advantage of name, image and likeness opportunities,” NCAA
President Mark Emmert said in a statement.
“This is an exciting time,” UC Berkeley Athletic Director Jim Knowlton told The Chronicle. “This legislation that started in California gives us an opportunity to provide our studentathletes many of the same opportunities that (nonathlete) students have been able to have for many years.”
Wednesday’s vote by the NCAA’s Division I Board of Directors — 24 campus leaders who oversee intercollegiate athletics at 350 colleges and universities — was driven by California’s Fair Pay to Play Act of 2019. That law, carried by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, DBerkeley, was the first in the country to buck the NCAA’s longheld stance against letting studentathletes profit off their names and images. Since then, 22 other states have done the same.
The NCAA’s vote frees each school to comply with such laws and allows schools in states without them to create rules of their own. It applies to all intercollegiate sports. The NCAA still prohibits athletes from being paid directly by colleges.
“I’m excited. It will be really good to see kids making money rather than just the schools,” said Cameron Brown, 17, an incoming senior at Bishop O’Dowd High in Oakland who hopes to play basketball in college next year.
So do Jalen Edwards and Myles De Los SantosMoore, both 16, who were training with Brown at their coach Lou Richie’s home in Oakland on Wednesday. They also said the NCAA vote was a victory for student athletes.
“I think it’s great because of all the hard work and time athletes spend perfecting their craft, and now they can actually make money off it,” Edwards said.
“If I’m blessed” to play in college, said De Los SantosMoore, “I’ll be profiting off myself, and not just people profiting off of me.”
Like other athletes, coaches and advocates who have spent years pushing for the NCAA to lift its restrictions, the high school players and their coach said social equity was at the heart of the matter.
“A lot of (student athletes) are from lowincome areas and come up struggling,” Brown said. “They might be going back home hungry, so making money off their likeness might not just be for them. They might be looking after their family.”
Women, too, say the decision benefits them. Because there are fewer professional sports options for women than for men, the ability to monetize their skills at college can help, former Stanford volleyball player Hayley Hodson told The Chronicle.
Richie, a varsity head coach and a physical education teacher at Bishop O’Dowd, has tracked the issue for years. While playing basketball at UCLA in the 1990s, he roomed with Ed O’Bannon, who would become the lead plaintiff in a 2009 lawsuit in which a dozen former college basketball and football players sued the NCAA for a share of the revenue the organization received from their performances on TV and from the use of their likenesses in video games.
After an initial court victory, in 2015 the Ninth U.S. Circuit of Appeals in San Francisco overturned most of the earlier decision, leaving athletes without the prospect of being paid for the use of their names, images and likenesses — until California passed its law four years later. That law does not take effect until 2023, but Skinner is carrying new legislation that would speed up the date to this September.
On Wednesday, the NCAA gave up the last of its objections.
“The opportunity to make money will open doors for a lot of families and people,” Richie said.
The Bay Area is home to six Division I schools: Stanford, UC Berkeley, St. Mary’s, the University of San Francisco, Santa Clara University and San Jose State. Mary Papazian, San Jose State’s president, serves on the NCAA board that approved the change. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Carter Henderson, Stanford’s spokesperson for athletics, said the university will soon announce guidance for studentathletes, but declined to comment further.
Knowlton, UC Berkeley’s athletic director, said the university is “absolutely, perfectly positioned for ... our studentathletes to build their brands, take advantage of their name, image and likeness.”
Young players say they, too, are perfectly positioned to build their brands.
“I wear Nike a lot,” said Brown, who plays point guard for the Bishop O’Dowd team. “So ...”