Santa Cruz Sentinel

NCAA, Power Five play defense with Dems controllin­g Congress

- By Ben Nuckols

The NCAA, the Power Five conference­s and their $2 million platoon of lobbyists had a pretty good year on Capitol Hill in 2020. With Republican­s controllin­g the Senate, the power brokers in college sports were on track to secure a way for athletes nationwide to earn money from endorsemen­ts while otherwise maintainin­g the status quo of amateurism.

Now that Democrats control Congress and the White House, 2021 is shaping up to be a much bigger challenge for those who don’t want major changes in college sports.

The bills now best positioned to advance would guarantee health care for college athletes and some form of revenue sharing, which critics describe as “pay for play.” Democrats pushing such legislatio­n aren’t just motivated by giving athletes access to the free market through name, image and likeness (NIL) rights — a modest reform that has the full support of the NCAA and the Power Five.

Instead, some Democrats see college sports reform as a racial and economic justice issue and are seeking to correct a system they consider exploitati­ve of minorities.

“I think the Power Five and NCAA proposals are dead in the water. They went to Congress and they lost,” said Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Associatio­n. “At this point, all they can do is play defense, which is what we were doing at first. Now we’re playing offense.”

That defensive posture for the Power Five comes after the conference­s — the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Pac-12 — collective­ly spent $1,730,000 to lobby Congress in 2020 — by far the most they have spent in a year, according to lobbying disclosure­s reviewed by The Associated Press.

The NCAA, despite calling off its lucrative basketball tournament­s last March, spent $480,000 on lobbying, roughly in line with its budget in past years, for a total of $2,210,000 paid to lobbyists with similar aims.

Each Power Five conference hired its own lobbying firm and they collective­ly hired the same two firms — one Republican and one Democratic — as part of their push for a narrow bill giving athletes NIL rights, with numerous restrictio­ns. The Southeaste­rn Conference had the biggest lobbying budget of any league and even outspent the NCAA, paying its lobbyists $570,000.

The lobbyists got most of their wish list into a bill introduced last month by Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., but with Wicker no longer the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, it’s unlikely his bill would advance if it were reintroduc­ed in the new Congress.

“The body politic has shifted left, there’s no question about it, and that’s toward more student-athlete empowermen­t,” said Tom McMillen, a former Democratic congressma­n from Maryland who now represents Division I athletic directors as executive director of the LEAD1 Associatio­n.

Sens. Cory Booker, D-N.J., and Richard Blumenthal, DConn., plan to reintroduc­e their bill from the previous Congress that would require schools to share 50% of their profits from revenue-generating sports such as football and basketball with the athletes who play them. Connecticu­t’s junior senator, Democrat Chris Murphy, is drafting his own bill that would also include revenue sharing. That approach has the support of Huma’s organizati­on, which is seeking to represent athletes if they are granted collective-bargaining rights.

“I think Democrats have coalesced around the idea that if you’re going to spend time debating the issue of college athletics, you shouldn’t be limited to talking only about endorsemen­t rights,” Murphy told AP. “My sense is that if the NCAA wants Congress to solve this issue of NIL, they’re going to have to come to the table on a lot of other things as well.”

 ?? DARRON CUMMINGS — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE ?? The NCAA and the Power Five conference­s will have to work harder to prevent major changes to college sports now that Democrats control Congress and the White House.
DARRON CUMMINGS — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE The NCAA and the Power Five conference­s will have to work harder to prevent major changes to college sports now that Democrats control Congress and the White House.

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