OT: Colorado is poised to become the next state to allow student-athletes to profit from their names, images, and likeness.
Colorado is poised to become the next state to allow student-athletes to profit from their name, images, and likeness.
SB20-123 now heads to the governor after a 55-9 vote in the state house yesterday. It is expected to be signed into law. Interestingly, the state's public universities and the state house and senate collaborated on the creating the bill.
While this is not a pay-for-play law, it does give the NCAA a middle finger in regulating what a player can do off the field which shouldn't otherwise jeopardize amateur status or eligibility -- and there is wording to that effect in the bill.
Another interesting item gleaned from reading the fine print, the law won't go into effect until January 2023 -- not sure for the rationale behind the delay.
Well on it's way to 50 well-deserved middle fingers to the NCAA.
It's not cheating if it's allowed.
If your choices are
School A: Scholarship. $0 and no chance to earn money your name/likeness, Alumni /Booster Favors, Great education and degree,
School B: Scholarship. $300K under the table, Alumni/Booster favors, decent education and degree.
It's a no brainer for a lot of kids, especially those from economically disadvantaged positions. Get paid now, there's no guarantees, etc...
on the other hand if School A can offer you the chance to make some money your name/likeness, perhaps significantly so, the gap is less important and the other factors like the degree, etc can hold more fair weight. It won't solve all the problems as greedy or “enterprising” kids/parents will always exist and some may always hold out for the "highest bidder" but for other who might want to go School A but can't because it's putting them in bind when School B is offering them cash, School A can make up some ground.
Cheaters gonna cheat, but these kinds of changes make their cheating less significant in the process for at least some prospects and more importantly is the right thing to do for the athletes.
^^^ THIS!
The Colorado bill specifically (I don't know about CA, NY, IL, FL) does ***NOT*** fix School B/bagmen.
The Colorado bill states one cannot sign an endorsement contract, one cannot hire an agent, a school cannot line up deals for a student athlete both before (interesting they got out in front of a potential loophole here) and after a student-athlete enrolls.
What this is doing is telling the NCAA they cannot regulate one's own name and image under the illusion of amateurism -- which is completely reasonable... and is your School A plus option.
I wonder what the pandora's box concerns are?
Not sure anyone knows yet.
Its a good middle ground, because pay-for-play where the schools have to actually pay the players would cause a lot of athletic departments to either go bankrupt, or be forced to drop their revenue sports because they simply can't afford to pay everyone. Only the big time programs with the pocketbooks to match would be able to survive something like that.
Good to see the NCAA finally get what's been coming to it for a long time, and hopefully this starts convincing other states to follow suit.
The revenue sports won't be dropped because they pay for everything else. It's the men's rowing team that will go away (if it hasn't already)...
The delay to 2023 is likely due to the state giving the NCAA a chance to correct it and the state and universities getting time to craft the infrastructure and management behind the implementation.
Which is a good thing. It will be better in the long-run for there to be a standard that could applied to all states instead of having 45 different sets of rules. I seem to remember New York's bill having some additional requirements that were not included in California's.
In doing research for another post I just read an interview from the NY bill's author that he copied CA's but with language to take effect in 2021 rather than 2023.
I guess I don't remember the specifics for sure but I thought the New York proposed bill included 15% of revenue from athletic departments to be paid to the athletes directly rather than just NIL. I guess that could have fallen out or just been part of an initial proposal
If any legislature members read this, I always thought a good MI solution would be to offer full NIL rights and revenue sharing between the school and athletes, with the money to be disbursed 50/50-- any NIL revenue gained can be 50% immediately accessible by the athlete, and 50% in a school held escrow account to be distributed after graduation / departure from the school. Lessens the tax impact on the students, but also potentially minimizes the opportunities for shenanigans / financial scams targeting athletes. Independently gained revenue by the athlete can be deposited tax deferred (at least at the state level) into the university held escrow.
Good points... +1
I didn't read specifics of any other bills than Colorado; just saw the interview (while looking to see how many bills have made it to law) and replied.
I live in Colorado and am happy to see this issue moving forward. It also reminds how the NCAA completely screwed Jeremy Bloom in 2006. He had to give up his football eligibility at CU so he could compete in freestyle mogul skiing at the Winter Olympics at Turin.
Bloom had to accept sponcership money for travel and training to afford to pay for skiing. He petitioned the NCAA, saying he would only accept enough money to cover his costs, but the NCAA... is the worst.
Just days after the competing in Turin, Bloom was at the NFL combine.
Has any college athlete anywhere made a dime on these new laws yet?
What new laws? No state Governor has signed anything into law. The CA bill is still going through various committees before getting a final vote in the state legislature. Everything else is just talk, so far...
I'm confused by this too... I don't understand how there have been conflicting reports when it's reported Newsome signed the CA bill. When a governor signs a bill, doesn't that make it a law?
The NCAA had a response to CA.
But to the OP's point, since this just happened this fall in CA, is there enough data yet to illustrate whether or not players are making money?
Edit: I was curious about the other states. Here's their status:
Looks like IL's bill died in committee.
My bad - I didn't realize that Newsome signed CA's bill into law! Last I heard it had passed a committee vote and was heading back to the full legislature for a final vote. Maybe I just missed the whole thing? Anyway, thanks for the update, and I'm glad it passed into law!
I thought the CA bill wasn't supposed to go into effect until 2023.
Yes, 2023 is when the law is enforceable. But since Newsome signed the bill, isn't it a law now?
First, you deserve upvotes for the informative post. Most people these days would have just posted a text based address, and not have provided the synopsis that you did. So +1!!
Second, who the hell are the 9 that voted against it? No doubt they're beholden to NCAA lobbyists in some form...
What about the weed?
IMO Colorado is starting to become one of the better places to live.
I've stayed there for handful of times last 5 years for a month or longer and each time I come away very impressed by the people there.
It is a great place to live. I moved to Colorado from Michigan in 1982. I had no plans to stay long term. At first, I missed the water (I'm from Grand Haven), but the sunny days won me over. We have winter but it's not really cold. Summer is great with hot days and cool nights and very few bugs. In 1989 I moved to Huntsville, Alabama for a job. Moved back in 1996, just in time to see Michigan beat CU in Boulder. I've been here ever since.
Mitch McGary would have been an awesome spokesman for cannabis companies!!!
I blame lyin' Mel
Where does MI fall on this? I heard rumblings of it earlier, but never heard if the bill was passed or not.
In a recent article from insidehighered.com it looks like companies are already strategizing for this change.
One company, StudentPlayer.com, is a new crowdfunding platform similar to GoFundMe.com that will allow anyone -- college sports fans, alumni and large companies -- to donate funds to a specific collegiate athletic program or player position. The company’s founder, Zachary Segal, said StudentPlayer.com will “democratize” the college sports economy and compared the process to making political campaign contributions. All donations, listed by institution and sports team, will be made public on the website, he said.
Credit studentplayer.com
He said a $10,000 donation has already been made by TocoWarranty.com, an auto repair insurance company, to 10 Division I football teams for each of their starting quarterback positions, including Louisiana State University, Clemson University and the University of Oklahoma.
Who wants to start throwing money at UM kids?
Who wants to start throwing money at UM kids?
Not correcting your post but as a Michigan fan, I think this is dangerous territory and wouldn't donate. This reads like it could fall under the "booster" restrictions in the NCAA bylaws and at least Colorado's bill, by way of comparison, (edit) does not do the end around the NCAA oversight in that regard.
Not correcting your post but as a Michigan fan, I think this is dangerous territory and wouldn't donate. This reads like it could fall under the "booster" restrictions in the NCAA bylaws and at least Colorado's bill, by way of comparison, does the end around the NCAA oversight in that regard.
No worries, that's a legitimate concern and that idea was addressed in the article. Some athletic departments are already on this and are monitoring the situation.
According to the article, the site had raised a total $103,333 as of Jan. 13. College teams and athletes won’t be obligated to accept money offered to them once NIL rules permit it, but if they do, players will make a video or social media post in exchange for endorsing an advertiser, company or StudentPlayer.com itself, Segal said. He noted some uncertainty about how each contribution will work and said the endorsements will vary on a case-by-case basis.
“Athletes will be required to promote StudentPlayer.com and a few other advertisers as well,” Segal said. “Those other advertisers will vary by team, sport, school state, a number of criteria … This is a centralized place to make it easy for the athlete to understand what funding opportunities will be presented at different universities.”
Apropos nothing, how much do we make creating content for MGblog?
I think the delay is probably because they don't actually want to go to court with the NCAA and its resources(taxpayer dollars on something they don't care about), but want to send a signal to the NCAA that California isn't the only one in on this. It's free good publicity for the acting members of their government, no one is going to remember the 15th state to come up with a bill like this.
It's like the recreational marijuana thing, they got ahead of the curve and got a bunch of good publicity with the money it made the state and many states followed suit. I don't think it's political to say that I'm impressed with their savvy in these cases. Once again, many states will follow suit, but won't be remembered as helping start a movement. That matters to incumbents and voters alike.
But good on them for doing the right thing, regardless of what their motives are.
I assume the delay is to give the NCAA a chance to change its tune on this issue, but as for the bill itself, I support these efforts, and I hope more states give the NCAA their collective finger on this issue.
Why not michigan? After msu and now m debacles with “doctors,” take the midwest lead on this. Step up!
It's certainly interesting from an advertising perspective. If $1,000 gets me an endorsement from an SEC starting quarterback, what would it cost to get an endorsement from the starting third baseman on the softball team. I don't know who this is, off-hand (Bump, Uden?), but what I'm getting is an in on the Michigan brand for a price so far below market value that it seems too good to be true. But without the brand, I'm not certain it has any value.
What role does a university play in vetting these opportunities? The marketing rules for anything related to a major university are a packet an inch thick, IIRC. This web site shouldn't be an end-run around those requirements.
Would revenue-sharing help anyone? https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2014/dec/22/jim-moran/moran-says-only-20-colleges-make-profit-sports/
That's not an encouraging financial statement.
https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/growth-division-i-athletics-expenses-outpaces-revenue-increases. More detail. There's also an app on the NCAA site that shows a bit more, through 2018.
This is an interesting piece focusing on MSU in 2010:
http://businessofcollegesports.com/2011/07/19/which-sports-turn-a-profit/
What it seems to come down to, I think, is that there's an inherent hypocrisy in the notion that men's basketball and football in the big five conferences are amateur sports. 30-40% of those programs make a decent amount of money. We could argue that coaching salaries are too high, but the salary numbers are easily found at these sites, and reducing those salaries wouldn't make a huge difference, though presumably it would drive away some talented coaches like Harbaugh, but not Beilein any more.
In theory, I like that this hypocrisy is being exposed and these laws are being considered. I'm not sure how it's being done is good for the sport. Maybe the answer is that college sports are a pleasant, but anachronistic notion. We can no longer pretend Michigan football is this pure, amateur joy representing all of us alums and students.
I think the elite football and basketball players should be better compensated. I just don't know how to do it without turning it into a nightmare of marketing, advertising and closing down sports at many institutions (particularly football).