Collegiate athletes in California are one step closer to gaining a piece of financial freedom, now that a bill giving them the right to profit from their image and likeness has cleared the state legislature.
And, more importantly, the NCAA, college sports’ governing body, seems one step from realizing that young people don’t sacrifice their right to control their own destiny at the cost of a scholarship.
Too bad that recognition will almost certainly come not with enlightenment or social advancement, but with probable litigation that will only delay the inevitable.
As we told you a few months ago, the California State Senate approved a measure that would allow college athletes to be represented by agents who could negotiate deals for the athletes to be paid for the use of their names, images and likenesses,
Last week, the State Assembly, the lower house of the legislature, followed their Senate colleagues by passing the bill in a 72-0 vote.
The measure moves on to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk for his signature. To date, Newsom has not indicated what he will do, but it seems unlikely that a governor would ignore legislation that sailed through both houses with near unanimity.
The bill also contains language that would bar the NCAA from declaring ineligible athletes at the 58 California colleges and universities that belong to the Indianapolis-based organization.
And why would they be ineligible, you ask? NCAA officials believe that legislation would permit California athletes to profit from their names and images and likenesses would give those schools an unfair recruiting advantage.
Right about now, you’re probably thinking: There’s a really simple fix to this. And that is, to let all collegiate athletes make a dime off those tangibles.
You would think that. And if you did, then you wouldn’t understand how the 113 year-old NCAA operates.
The organization has governed under the notion that a college scholarship alone should be sufficient for these quote student-athletes, an antiquated term invented by the NCAA.
The NCAA has, in letters to California legislators, suggested that the legislation would destroy the boundaries between college and professional sports. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone not involved in the NCAA who thinks that boundary exists now.
Not when some football and men’s basketball coaches earn nearly $9 million annually.
Not when schools like Clemson and Alabama spend obscene amounts of money to build training facilities.
And not when the NCAA and universities rake in billions in television dollars, while the athletes who make that possible get little beyond a scholarship that is renewable for one year at the whims of the schools.
NCAA President Mark Emmert has asked California to give a study group time to come up a plan to address the issues raised in the bill, but has thrown out the old trope that it won’t approve pay-for-play.
The California bill doesn’t go in for that either, though what would be wrong with that?
For over a century, the NCAA has tried a 19th century approach. The state of California is welcoming the NCAA to the 21st century. If it were smart, it would accept.
And that’s how I see it for this week.
