Once California passed a law to allow athletes to profit off of their likeness and namesake, it was only a matter of time as everyone was profiting except for the athlete. I have mixed feelings about this. There are some athletes that will never graduate and aren’t even capable of attaining an advanced degree (a whole separate conversation) and this will at least give them something in exchange for their time and talent.
There is a senator who has proposed legislation to tax the scholarships that these athletes are awarded.
Long overdue.
I’m against it but there are lots of reasonable arguments on both sides. In sports like basketball, it’s very common for a player to leave after one yr. “One and done” as they say. It’s like the player uses the top D1 team as a basketball league to play against top talent for a yr, grow, etc. If the NBA had a minor league system like baseball, maybe these kids would just sign out of HS and it wouldn’t be an issue. The NBA is benefiting from player development without risk.
Some will argue the players in revenue sports fund the schools so why not pay them (although that’s not what the statute is about - not to compensate for playing but rather for likeness in advertising)? Power 5 football conferences represent millions of dollars each yr to it’s members. Others will argue they are being paid via free education. Don’t see how we could tax that as that would require taxing education based scholarships or open up lots of litigation.
Slippery slope…
Scholarships (athletic or not) that are used to fund room and board (among other things) are already taxable.
Yeah, but start taxing merit or need based scholarships used towards tuition and there would be an uprising.
NCAA Football is a billion dollar business and there is no way that the players should get such a small piece of that business model. But how do you pay players without corruption happening? An used car salesman could talk to a top recruit to let him know he is my next spokesperson (with a large paycheck) if he attends the home university. I am curious of the solution, but it will not be an easy one because boosters could corrupt revenue generating Collegiate sports…
There will be a lot of unintended consequences, particularly in college basketball, so I wish the NBA would have moved sooner (or California’s new pay for likeness law later) to the not yet implemented NBA removal of the ‘must be 19 years old to enter the NBA’. Too many kids playing college basketball that couldn’t care less about college learning. That’s what created the horrible ‘one and done’ college basketball culture. The NBA recently changed it to 18, but that is too little, too late.
MLB/NCAA Baseball works very well. MLB allows 16 year olds to go straight into the major/minor leagues. It used to be really good players went straight into the minors. However, now more families see the benefits of a college education and how it benefits the bulk of life after a relatively short athletic career. College baseball competition is getting better and better and the kids are there for the right reasons.
What Rickle fails to mention about “one and done” is the NBA rule which requires that any NBA player must be at least 19 years of age and a year removed from HS. So the NCAA, acting as if it is the NBA’s minor league, is party to the one and done issue. And while the 19 yo requirement may be ending eventually, it’s still the rule and won’t be changed before the 2022 NBA draft.
And making things more unacceptable is the fact that the NBA does have a minor league-the NBA G League.
Everybody, but the athletes, was making money off the athletes.
The action today was long overdue.
Boosters will show up with briefcases full of money, just like they did for Eric Dickerson and the Pony Express in the SMU days. That money, which will be paid for the likeness and image, will be income and taxable. It will NOT be a scholarship. What California and the NCAA are proposing to allow pay for is the picture on the Game Day program, for doing promotions at car dealerships, for Madden College edition games. They will be paid for modeling, and they should be taxed on that income.
The top players will be paid, most others will not be. If the AD has to pay for putting the quarterback’s picture on the program, they’ll just put another picture on the cover and not pay. The mascot? The college president? A team picture? The band? the third string halfback who will be happy to lend his image and likeness for free!
I was a fence-sitter on this until I heard the argument that their sport IS their job. You can’t play football at a DI program and go to school, practice AND have a work-study job. So many have profited off these kids; time to pay them.
Some athletes do have jobs. Football players usually don’t, but then most D1 players are on full scholarships with a COA stipend. (the ones I feel sorry for are the non-scholarship players, but they aren’t going to be earning any money on their likeness and image because they aren’t popular, recognized players).
This will have the top recruits getting bags of money from the boosters and nothing will change for the majority of college athletes. Missy Franklin would have been able to take advertising money after her ‘good’ Olympics before going to Cal. Lots of money. The rest of the Cal swim team won’t get much.
But no matter how many athletes are affected, it’s a huge change to allow them to profit from their own likeness/name.
I’m not sure what it means, “profit off of their likeness and namesake,”. Does that mean a kid gets paid if his jersey - with his name and number - is sold at the college book store? I understand players’ names (and numbers) are also sometimes used in video games. Seems like only the very top, best, first team all-American name-recognized players would make any significant money from this. What other ways could college players make money now under these new rules? Would a top basketball player (a potential NBA lottery pick) be able to make enough money while in college to possibly contemplate sticking around for 2 (or 3) years instead of going 1 and done?
Somebody like Zion Williamson could have signed a multimillion dollar shoe deal in college if it was permitted, but he is exceptional.
They are working it out what it means. The player wouldn’t be paid if the number was used but yes, if the name is on the jersey he will be. The schools could just not put the name on and just sell jerseys with the number, which of course belongs to the school. Can the player make and market his own jersey? probably not because the school and NCAA have restrictions on the contracts with Nike and the gang. I mean, I can’t just print up jerseys with #12 Brady on them. I can’t even print them with UCLA or Yale on them.
The UCLA gymnast will get paid for her YouTube views, the player can do a meet and greet and get paid. They will be models and spokespersons. The biggest abuses (which may be legal) are like explained in post 4: "But how do you pay players without corruption happening? An used car salesman could talk to a top recruit to let him know he is my next spokesperson (with a large paycheck) if he attends the home university. " Ah, the Eric Dickerson era.
the NBA didn’t restrict high schoolers from going directly to the NBA back when, and LeBron and his age group did. NBA decided they wanted a year of college (or European play). Now they are going back to direct recruiting. IMO, not a good idea. We had a baseball player at our school deciding between college and pros. It was a big decision for him, and his father is a well known sports agent so he had lots of guidance. I don’t think 18 year olds should make that decision, $$$ or college. I like that some sports require college/being older.
Disagree; all 18 year olds can enter into binding contracts, and athletes for better or worse should be allowed to do so. And good money, even for benchwarmers, will come from video games.
The NCAA is making, literally, hundreds of millions of dollars off these athletes and their likenesses; allowing the athletes to make a tiny fraction of that-it’s their likenesses, after all-is only appropriate.
That will only happen if videogame manufacturers continue to use real names/likenesses…knowing that will cost them money now, not so sure they will continue to do that, but time will tell.
The two revenue sports are much different than the others, as they are the only ones that offer full rides to (nearly) everyone on the team. All other sports have partial schollies, so the student cannot attend for ‘free’.
The NBA cut a deal to stop recruiting right out of high school and require one year post-graduation prior to entering. Of course, the one-and-done resulted, and that is going away.
Unlike with the NBA, 18 year-olds are just too small to go direct to the NFL. So, unless teh NFL wants to start paying for farm clubs (like MLB), college has to be the apprentice role.
As an aside, yes, the MLB drafts kids out of HS and then out of college. But, the demographics are illustrative: the poor (and minority) kids tend to go straight to A ball. The middle class kids can ‘afford’ to attend college (again, where at best they receive a partial scholarship). Check out how many persons of color are playing in next year’s CWS.
In light of the explosive growth in popularity of what were once considered secondary sports-gymnastics and golf, for example-athletes in a variety of sports will be able to benefit from the new policy.