For 116 years, college athletes could not make
money off their name, image or likeness. That all
changed in 2021 new state
laws and NCAA rules went into effect at 12 or 1am,
allowing collegiate athletes to profit off their name,
image and likeness. For the first time. It was the nudge
from those states you're seeing on your screen right
now that push the NCAA to finally offer a one size
fits all plan. If approved on July 1
kind of knew what was coming. It was just a matter
of when now that you know college are able to
capitalize off of their name, image and likeness.
They're able to kind of receive a portion of what
they contribute
for the average student athlete. It didn't change
too much unless you were in my case, Caleb Williams or
Spencer Rattler, or maybe Jaden Hazelwood with
4050 100,000 followers on Instagram and your following
base is strong.
It was either an economic rights issue, a civil rights
issue or racial justice issue and for some all of
those, that it was just unfair that these college
athletes were generating so much money, but we're not
allowed to be compensated for it.
So let's dive in. Let's go back to 2010. That's when
USC running back Reggie Bush made an unprecedented
decision to forfeit the Heisman trophy. It was in
response to allegations that he received improper
benefits while at the school. Then in another
violation of NCAA rules. Texas a&m quarterback Johnny
Manziel, was suspended half a game for allegedly selling
autographed jerseys. These two cases although very
different, sparked conversation about whether
famous already celebrity college athletes could make
money from that fame.
I don't know if there's a change of perception because
I think you've always had two sides of the fence,
right? Yeah, one side so college athletes shouldn't
be paid. And he had the other side who felt like
they shouldn't be paid because that ruins the
ethics of what college sports is supposed to be.
Then, in 2014. A landmark legal decision came in the
NCAA vers O'Bannon case that found banning payments to
NCAA athletes violated antitrust law.
Part of it was the abandoned but remember no ban and the
Ninth Circuit eventually reversed BNL decision and
said that the NCAA can prohibit and I owe
compensation because what defines them as amateurs is
that they are not paid expenses untethered to
education and il was seen as untethered to education.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ended up reversing
part of the decision a year later, but affirmed the part
of the ruling and found the NCAA in violation of the
Sherman Antitrust Act. Then the next landmark legal
decision came in 2021. A court case between the NCAA
and two college athletes worked its way up to the
Supreme Court, which held up rulings from lower courts,
they found the NCAA in violation of antitrust laws.
And in the Austin case, more specifically, it was just
saying there shouldn't really be any limits on
compensation that schools can provide to athletes and
the district court really gave a split decision. They
said that the NCAA can restrict benefits that are
unrelated to education because restricting those
benefits is what separates college athletes from pro
athletes, but they're not allowed to restrict benefits
related to education. As legal
pressure mounted, the DEA one council recommended the
NCAA adopt nio policy. Just a few days later, the NCAA
passed interim name image and likeness policy. Then a
bunch of states passed legislation largely modeled
after California's fair pay to play act, which allows
athletes to receive endorsements and
sponsorships while keeping college eligibility and more
states have NFL policy going into effect in 2023, while
some like Alabama have repealed their NFL laws
and IO deals began to pour in after the Austin ruling
came down and 2021 A University of Miami
quarterback got NFL contracts with a moving
company and local car dealership. Twin sisters
playing basketball at Fresno State were signed by World
Wrestling Entertainment and the deal reportedly worth
six figures. In addition to other NFL contracts. Alabama
quarterback Bryce young reportedly had NFL deals
reaching seven figures before even coming off the
bench as a backup. Lesser known players have also
gotten in on the NFL action to University of Oklahoma
football players, for example, launched a podcast
and have made money from merchandise sponsorships,
and more. Jeremiah Hall was one of them.
If anything, I think that we came more together because
of it. If somebody had a deal going on, I remember I
think Brian awesomo had like a pizza deal and we were all
like retweeting and reposting it like hey like
yo plug a sandwich some pizza like a piece of plug
now you know I'm saying so we were having some fun and
I remember when Spencer gotta gotta do I think it
was with Ford. He got like two cars. We all went on
Twitter. And we were like yo anybody want to want to give
a son or a car. And you know we have fun
and then I LDL can be anything From getting paid
to sign autographs working with a local dealership
receiving royalties for Jersey sales or even
appearing in video games like the NCAA Football
series from EA Sports
in Iowa is definitely not for everybody. It's very
similar to any sport where that where the main position
is the person that has the ball most of the time you
know in baseball is the pitcher in football is the
quarterback and basketball is the point guard. It's the
person doing the most scoring overall it just gave
us more to take care of according to
open doors data companies like barstool, sports,
rollback and go puff have offered nio deals to college
athletes Lululemon and Unilever have also offered
in aisle deals. Most of the deals involve sponsored
posts on social media then come signing memorabilia and
other activities and licensing rights like a
potential NCAA game. For example, this integration
hasn't been all smooth sailing. In February 2022,
the NCAA division one board of directors announced a
probe into potential violations from various
programs like Oregon and BYU. The formal results are
expected this June. At the time d one board chairman
and Georgia President Jerry Moorhead said We are
concerned that some of the activity in the name image
and likeness space may not only be violating NCAA
recruiting rules, particularly those
prohibiting booster involvement but also may be
impacting the student athlete experience
negatively in some ways. Alabama's Nick Saban,
Mississippi's Lane Kiffin, among others have spoken out
against the current NIR landscape. One area of
special concern are collectives, essentially
marketing agencies designed to facilitate deals between
athletes and businesses. A lot of notable alumni and
boosters pour money into these organizations, which
then goes to the players and potential recruits. However,
since NCAA policies prohibit schools from paying players
directly, the process is completely legal. There's
very little public disclosure regarding
collective deals. So the money goes untraceable how
boosters react to player underperformance has yet to
be seen. So what's next for college athletics and
federal legislation over and I'll deals
uniformity is going to have to be the way that this
ends, because you can't have different states having
different laws and IO, because at that point, once
it gets right down to it again, you go back to the
state tax issue, perhaps those areas and those big
schools are positioned and located in areas that do not
have state taxes, they might have the unfair advantage.
I think their fear is that this is going to open the
door to a series of antitrust lawsuits brought
by plaintiffs challenging every restriction on athlete
compensation that is unrelated to education or
related to education, and that eventually, the
plaintiffs are going to win so many of these cases, that
there will be nothing left for the NCAA to be able to
control that it will be up to at best the individual
conferences or maybe the schools to decide how much
they're going to pay athletes. And once the door
is open to compensation, then there's no way of
closing
I think that they should just consult the NFL and
look at their policies and how their language is
written out. And then convert that language to the
NCAA and see if they can find a way to come up with
all inclusive type of system