NCAA must come up with Plan B if federal NIL legislation continues to fizzle (1 Viewer)

[Carm]

NCAA must come up with Plan B if federal NIL legislation continues to fizzle​

Ivan Maisel•about 2 hours
Article written by:

Ivan Maisel
Ivan_Maisel
The faith in NCAA president Charlie Baker among his new constituents is broad.
They believe that Baker has the political ability to convince a dysfunctional Congress to pass the national legislation necessary for the NCAA to reassert control of intercollegiate athletics over the 30-odd (and counting) state NIL laws.
Baker’s loyalists had better be right, because in athletic terms, he has pulled his goalie.
The NCAA has no Plan B.
It’s a Congressional law or bust.
The need for a national standard is real. Two years into the NIL era, the NCAA ban against using NIL as a recruiting inducement is openly defied. State legislatures are getting more brazen in passing or considering laws that create competitive advantages for their universities. Legislatures are passing laws that prevent the NCAA from finding that schools in their state cheated.
Missouri is allowing high school kids who sign athletic scholarships to participate in college-level NIL deals but not giving the same privilege to kids who sign with schools out of state.
California is considering a bill that would distribute the profits made by one sport to the student-athletes of that sport. Such legislation would greatly hamper non-revenue sports, Title IX compliance and the nation’s Olympic sports.
Andrew Zimbalist, the sports economist who often has clashed with the NCAA, released a statement Friday that framed the proposed California legislation as the first entry in “a race to the bottom” as other states tried “to create the most auspicious conditions to recruit and retain star athletes.”
The National Labor Relations Board is sending signals that student-athletes should be considered employees, an idea that would be anathema to Divisions II and III and more than a few schools in Division I. The NCAA would like relief from that consideration as well.
All of which is to explain the need for Congress to act.
“We all want one set of fair rules,” TCU athletic director Jeremiah Donati said. “We’re trying to determine how to get there.”

Unclear if Congress will tackle NIL reform​

Several bills are being drawn up. But what if Congress doesn’t coalesce behind one of them? To date, NCAA members have failed to convey their urgency in a way that will make this Congress overcome its disinterest in bipartisan compromise. It also doesn’t help there is an upcoming election cycle and campaigning for that begins in a few short months.
In the last several days I spoke to officials at the NCAA and in four Division I conferences, looking for any planning for the possibility that Congress will continue to ignore the lobbying efforts of NCAA members across the country. No one knows of any such planning.
I like to fill an inside straight as much as the next guy. But this feels like Baker is being asked to thread a very small needle. While wearing mittens. It’s the same sort of non-planning that got college sports where it is today.
Baker knows that his new constituency didn’t hire him to maintain the status quo. He also has made it clear the NCAA won’t violate existing state law, or, to be more accurate, laws in 30-odd states.
As he makes his meet-and-greet rounds of NCAA conferences, Baker has given some members confidence. Others await convincing. Baker keeps moving. He served two productive terms as a Republican governor in the deep blue state of Massachusetts, a state in which politicians lead with their elbows.
Baker’s political savvy is a welcome change from the leadership of his NCAA predecessor, Mark Emmert, who refused to acknowledge the signs that NIL was coming. Rather than plan for it, accommodate it, and set up national rules that everyone could live with, Emmert’s NCAA tried to hide behind a shield of amateurism, a 19th-century construct that didn’t age well into the 21st. Not only did that prove to be a myopic strategy, it cost the NCAA control of the NIL issue.

NCAA needs a plan in case Congress doesn’t act​

That makes it seem even more obvious that the NCAA should have some sort of strategy for moving forward without Congressional help on NIL.
“President Baker’s background fits in nicely with what we need,” Central Michigan athletic director Amy Folan said. “We’re just getting started. Everybody is hopeful and realistic that there’s a lot of work to be done. We always find a way to figure it out. evolve and adapt.”
Folan referenced the battle over student-athlete employment a quarter-century ago.
“I was just coming out of being a student-athlete,” Folan said. “People said, ‘Well, if you let kids work, everybody’s going to cheat. This is never going to work, and it’s going to ruin college sports.”
The doomsayers whiffed, and Folan is confident, even with state legislatures and courts weighing in, that the doomsayers will whiff again.
She is a rare optimist, but these days defending the NCAA is like defending the IRS. We all know that society needs it. That doesn’t make it any more likable. Intercollegiate athletics need boundaries. If you want everyone in the choir to sound harmonious, give them the same hymnal.

 

[Carm]

New York introduces revised NIL legislation that would ‘greatly benefit’ state schools​

Jeremy Crabtree•about 22 hours
Article written by:

Jeremy Crabtree
jeremycrabtree
Missouri was the latest state last week to pass sweeping reforms on the local level that are squarely aimed at bypassing NCAA NIL oversight. Tucked inside the new Show-Me State law was an amendment that allows high school recruits to enter into NIL deals and start earning endorsement money as soon as they sign a letter of intent with in-state programs.
Arkansas and Colorado have already passed reform that gives coaches and school administrators a lot of leeway to engage in NIL discussions with student-athletes. Plus, similar legislation is on the table in Texas.
New York officially entered the fray late last week with a bill that NIL expert and Newman & Lickstein associate attorney Dan Greene said would “drastically change the Empire State’s NIL law in a way that would greatly benefit schools within the state.”
Interestingly, Greene said the language of the New York bill is almost identical to what Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt surprisingly vetoed in late April. Politics doomed the Oklahoma bill – for now. But it overwhelming sailed through the legislature and was chock-full of changes that would have significantly benefited Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Tulsa and other local colleges when recruiting and retaining student-athletes who also want to capitalize off NIL.

New York bill similar to what was on table in Oklahoma​

It’s a similar situation with New York.
The Empire State bill also includes a section that appears to provide cover for state schools from being punished by the NCAA for any NIL-related violations, including any committed by collectives that have been set up to support student-athletes through deal facilitation.
According to the bill: “An athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletes, including, but not limited to the NCAA, and shall not authorize its member institutions to penalize or prevent a college from participation in intercollegiate athletics because an individual or entity whose purpose includes supporting or benefitting the college or its athletic programs or student-athletes violates the collegiate athletic association’s rules or regulations with regard to a student-athlete’s name, image, or likeness activities.”
The proposal in New York further highlights the NCAA’s struggles to slow down the momentum on the state level for NIL law revisions, especially now that it’s not the states that are football hotbeds that are proposing changes.
“I’m glad to see my home state take a proactive approach to NIL at the state government level,” Greene, who is from Syracuse, N.Y., said. “It’s definitely a change from about six months ago. The focus has been on ‘football’ legislatures. But other state legislators should be aware of the ever-changing NIL landscape.”

 

[LoudHogRider]

 

[Black Dean]

I was about to say this lol

 

[huskerj12]

Baker’s political savvy is a welcome change from the leadership of his NCAA predecessor, Mark Emmert, who refused to acknowledge the signs that NIL was coming. Rather than plan for it, accommodate it, and set up national rules that everyone could live with, Emmert’s NCAA tried to hide behind a shield of amateurism, a 19th-century construct that didn’t age well into the 21st. Not only did that prove to be a myopic strategy, it cost the NCAA control of the NIL issue.

I didn't pay close attention to any of this at the time, but it seems like this Emmert character may have set college sports down a permanent path of disfunction by putting his head in the sand. I think college athletes deserve to get paid and I also think the current system is a total joke. It seems like the toothpaste is wayyy out of the tube at this point though. I'll be shocked if any politicians ever put their weight behind a national law that regulates the money.

 

[Baron Winnebago]

I don't think the NCAA can have a plan B that regulates how states handle NIL in the absence of federal legislation. Their main focus should be enforcing their rules that have led to NIL being used as inducements for players to leave other teams and tampering to make it happen. Of course states with more school favorable NIL laws will have a leg up, but there's nothing that can be done about that

 

[Baron Winnebago]

I didn't pay close attention to any of this at the time, but it seems like this Emmert character may have set college sports down a permanent path of disfunction by putting his head in the sand. I think college athletes deserve to get paid and I also think the current system is a total joke. It seems like the toothpaste is wayyy out of the tube at this point though. I'll be shocked if any politicians ever put their weight behind a national law that regulates the money.

They got away with shrieking amateurism to regulate anything and everything while TV revenue exploded and set themselves up for this to happen

 

[Toe]

The faith in NCAA president Charlie Baker among his new constituents is broad.

Seriously? Who has literally any faith at all in the NCAA?

 

[CornFed Gregger]

I didn't pay close attention to any of this at the time, but it seems like this Emmert character may have set college sports down a permanent path of disfunction by putting his head in the sand. I think college athletes deserve to get paid and I also think the current system is a total joke. It seems like the toothpaste is wayyy out of the tube at this point though. I'll be shocked if any politicians ever put their weight behind a national law that regulates the money.

I don’t think there’s a legal solution to it. The alternatives would destroy the lower level of college athletics & the NCAA can’t legally make widespread rules to even the playing field cuz it would illegally limit a players value/worth. It’s gonna be interesting to see if it works on its own, Laissez-faire or conferences go with some kinda CBA. NIL is what the schools want & I guarantee politicians only care about taxing non-profit status of collectives so the NCAA is a deadman walking

 

[Carm]

 

[Carm]

From the story

Quarterback downturn leading NIL adjustment period​

If an agent or lawyer could promise a commitment from a top-10 quarterback in exchange for a seven-figure payment last year, an NIL collective was racing for its checkbook. The quarterback market looks significantly different a year later. As Tater Island Scouting Director Charles Power recently noted, the 2024 quarterback class is one of the weakest cycles at the position in a few years.

Last year’s position group, however, was strong. Some of the biggest brands in college football took quarterbacks who could develop into program builders. Those same schools are not trying to pay for two million-dollar arms.

And yet, the market has adjusted. A 2024 quarterback prospect told Tater Island he has yet to hear of a quarterback earning “Nico money” from an NIL collective.

“When it came out that Nico was making $8 million, it was over four years. He’s not making $8 million per year like a lot of people thought he was,” the recruit said. “That’s still a boatload of money. Just talking with some of the guys who have been in the transfer portal recently, that I know personally, and I’ve grown up with, they kind of told me that for quarterbacks, it’s in the six-figure category per year. Anywhere from like $100K to $500K, stuff like that. There’s a handful of guys that are getting a lot more. Those are a small percentage.”