A new federal bill introduced on Thursday would make it illegal for the NCAA or other college sports associations to place any restrictions on the type or size of endorsement agreements that college athletes could sign in the future.
The bill, co-authored by Senator Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and Congresswoman Lori Trahan (D-Massachusetts), is the latest in a series of proposed national laws aimed at helping college athletes make money and reform an industry. billion-dollar college sports that several members of Congress believe is fundamentally unfair. This proposal is the only option so far that provides no means for Congress, the NCAA or any other regulatory body to regulate which products athletes can endorse.
“Great college sports don’t look any different from professional leagues, and it’s time to stop denying college athletes the right to make money from their talents,” said Murphy, who said he saw current NCAA rules as a civil rights issue. “If predominantly white coaches and NCAA executives can have unrestricted endorsement deals, why shouldn’t predominantly black athletes have the same opportunity?”
The new bill also specifically prohibits the NCAA or the conferences from doing anything that prevents athletes from organizing under collective representation to sell their licensing rights as a group. This type of group licensing is typically necessary to negotiate media rights, t-shirt sales and items such as video games, such as the college football video game that EA Sports announced its plan to revive earlier this week.
The NCAA has so far opposed the possibility for athletes to organize for any type of group licensing activity.
NCAA President Mark Emmert and other university sports leaders asked Congress for help in creating uniform national rules that dictate how athletes can profit from their names, images and similarities (NIL). These leaders want the ability to create “guardrails” that, they say, would prevent NIL payments from becoming underhanded salaries that cross the line between amateurism and professional sports.
Murphy and Trahan, who played volleyball in Georgetown, believe that the NCAA crossed the boundaries of professionalism a long time ago.
“As a former Division I athlete, I am very familiar with the NCAA business model that for decades used the guise of amateurism to justify obscene profitability, while student athletes struggle to survive,” said Trahan in a statement on Thursday. .
Murphy told ESPN that he thinks it is unlikely that Congress will be able to act on college sports legislation in the first six months of the year. This makes it likely that some state NIL laws will take effect before a national plan is implemented.
Florida has already passed a law that will make current NCAA rules illegal in the state as of July 1. Four other states are also considering legislation that would go into effect at the same time.
The NCAA argued that a variety of state laws, many of which have unique differences, would create a chaotic environment where schools would operate under different rules and potential athletes could be choosing their schools based on which state gives them the best chance to profit. in endorsement agreements.
The association declared its intention to change its own rules in October 2019. However, they missed a self-imposed deadline to vote on the proposed changes last month and it is unclear when they will move forward. The most recent NCAA proposal was significantly more restrictive for athletes than most state and federal legislative options.
“I would not support what the NCAA did, so I will not shed any tears for the NCAA’s decision to postpone,” Murphy told ESPN. “They would never be able to handle it. I think there is an argument to be made to allow the different state laws to take effect so that we can see if the sky falls as the NCAA says it will fall.”
The bill presented by Murphy and Trahan will be considered together with other legislation that presents a spectrum of options on how deeply involved Congress will become in shaping the future of college sports.
Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal proposed a bill in December that calls for comprehensive changes that go beyond compensation and NIL rights. Republican senators Roger Wicker and Marco Rubio proposed bills that give NCAA leaders more leeway to determine what restrictions are needed to preserve amateurism in college sports. Congressman Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) also presented a detailed proposal that would open the door to NIL payments while creating some restrictions on the types of products that athletes can endorse.
The Murphy and Trahan bill also states that any services that a school or conference provides athletes with to help them get the most out of their NIL potential should be available to all athletes under their supervision. In other words, if a school hires a consultant to help build the marks of its football stars, all other athletes at the school should have the same opportunity.
The project also requires an annual report, funded by the federal government, to assess how much money college athletes are earning from sponsorship deals and broken down by race, gender and sport to analyze the market.