USA, — As college athletes ink multi-million dollar deals for everything from commercials to social media posts and endorsements, NCAA leaders have practically been begging Congress to step in and regulate. So far – it’s been to no avail. But Tuesday NCAA President Charlie Baker made a proposal - Congress might just agree to.
In a letter to all 300 plus Division I colleges Baker deterred from the NCAA’s more than a century old commitment to amateurism and pushed new rules that for the first time would allow colleges to directly pay student-athletes.
The proposal has two distinctive objectives:
First: to allow schools to bring their name, image and likeness operations in-house and directly make marketing deals with their student athletes, essentially weeding out the third-party collectives that have been serving as middlemen for the past two years.
The second: to create a new subdivision of athletics that only includes the richest of schools. For schools to be included – they must commit to investing at least $30,000 per year per student-athlete to a trust fund that will be distributed to a minimum of half the athletes on campus as a licensing fee for that student's name, image and likeness. It would also allow the schools to make their own rules when it comes to recruiting athletes, acquiring transfers, roster sizes, and a handful of other policies.
“When you when you just say pay the players. To me, it's not that simple. It's how are they classified? Because they are students. There are employment laws in each state that define what that relationship can look like. So what we have to do is what's the model athlete institution,” said Texas A&M Athletic Director Ross Bjork, who sat down with WFAA last month.
A handful of conference leaders and college athletic department heads, including Bjork have been vocal the need for better NIL regulation.
“Right now in college sports we have to have an entity, whether it's Congress, whether it's the conferences, the NCAA, we have to reestablish the financial arrangement between the athlete and the institution. That's what we have to redefine,” said Bjork.
Under this new proposal, the price tag on joining the elite subdivision for a major conference athletic department like Texas A&M could be as low as $7.5 million.
“A lot of the money that is currently distributed through NIL is coming from boosters and being directed towards you know, the elite athletes, you know the 2%,” said Rashad Campbell, a former D1 student-athlete and the COO of Advance NIL. “But what his proposal does is it diversifies that money.”
Campbell’s company works with businesses, colleges and collectives to educate student athletes about NIL and the responsibilities that come with it and has seen first hand how the 2021 Supreme Court Decision that paved the way for student-athletes to profit has played out.
“Ultimately, Title 9 is at the core of this and the sports world to really recognize that there needs to be some type of equitable opportunity for women,” Campbell said.
Title IX requires that women and men be provided equitable opportunities to participate in sports. Currently NIL isn’t subject to the federal statute – but a lawsuit filed by 32 female athletes against the University of Oregon could provide the first ruling on whether NIL activities are subject to Title IX. Data shows huge disparities between male and female athletes when it comes to these lucrative deals and partnerships.
“Over 95% of that money is being distributed to men's sports,” Campbell said. “So I think that it's definitely going to create more equitable opportunities for all sports versus those typically revenue generating sports.”
NCAA stakeholders meet in January at their annual convention, but there’s no timeline on next steps or when these proposed changes could potentially go into effect.