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California Lawmakers Pass Bill Allowing College Athletes To Profit From Endorsements


Muda69

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https://deadspin.com/california-lawmakers-passes-bill-allowing-college-athle-1838001341

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The California State Assembly on Monday passed a bill that would allow college athletes to sign endorsement deals. SB 206, the Fair Pay To Play Act, cleared the Assembly by a vote of 72-0. A version of the bill passed the Senate by a similarly decisive vote in May.

The bill, if it becomes law, would go into effect January 1, 2023. Though none of the bill’s provisions involve schools paying athletes directly, it would prohibit schools in California from revoking scholarships or scholarship eligibility from athletes who profit off their own name, image and likeness.

The bill’s high-profile backers include LeBron James and multi-sport athlete Bernie Sanders.

...

The chambers will next need to reconcile differences in their versions of the bill; a vote to do so could come as early as Tuesday, says SB 206 sponsor Sen. Nancy Skinner. The Assembly’s version included amendments addressing potential conflicts between individual athlete deals and school deals, such as existing apparel contracts.

Then, the legislation will head to the desk of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who will have 30 days to sign it. Whether that will happen remains unclear. The numbers here—72-0 passage in the Assembly and 31-5 in the Senate—would seem enough to override any veto, but those are rare in California. Per the state’s tradition of legislative servility to mousy governors, the legislature has not overridden a gubernatorial veto since 1979.

It’s also likely Newsom will be lobbied heavily by the NCAA and the state’s public school systems, large private colleges and athletic conference officials.

“We’re firmly against anything that would lead to a pay-for-play system,” Pac-12 Commissioner Larry Scott told the New York Times.

In a June letter, NCAA President Mark Emmert had urged California lawmakers to postpone consideration of the bill while an NCAA working group study of amateurism policies is ongoing.

In the letter, Emmert suggested that colleges in California could be prohibited from competing for NCAA championships, because the bill might give those schools unfair advantages in recruiting athletes:

We recognize all of the efforts that have been undertaken to develop this bill in the context of complex issues related to the current collegiate model that have been the subject of litigation and much national debate. Nonetheless, when contrasted with current NCAA rules, as drafted the bill threatens to alter materially the principles of intercollegiate athletics and create local differences that would make it impossible to host fair national championships. As a result, it would likely have a negative impact on the exact student-athletes it indents to assist.

Emmert reportedly makes nearly $4 million per year.

A nice shot across the bow of the college sports monopoly known as the NCAA.  Good.

 

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1 hour ago, Coach Nowlin said:

I am sure that will be tied up in the court system for a good amount of years  

 

I’m trying to think, procedurally, how that would get to court. One way would be in the wake of an eligibility ruling against an athlete on the ground that he accepted compensation as provided for in the legislation. The student then gets an injunction against the NCAA and all legal hell breaks loose. Should be entertaining. But first, they need a guinea pig to serve as a test case/sacrificial lamb.

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The issue I think they have to address is schools (or more likely they boosters) use this as a recruiting tool. Come to State U and the local car wash company will pay you $300k/year to be their spokesperson. Is that where we really want college athletics to go? The NCAA is a good model. The NFL and NBA's inability to create a sustainable minor league system like MLB and MLS and NHL and rely on the NCAA to be their minor league is ultimately the root of this.

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53 minutes ago, JustRules said:

The issue I think they have to address is schools (or more likely they boosters) use this as a recruiting tool. Come to State U and the local car wash company will pay you $300k/year to be their spokesperson. Is that where we really want college athletics to go? The NCAA is a good model. The NFL and NBA's inability to create a sustainable minor league system like MLB and MLS and NHL and rely on the NCAA to be their minor league is ultimately the root of this.

Well, there is a perfectly reasonable opposing viewpoint. While the status quo may make for a more orderly college sports world, it also is denying young men and women the ability to better themselves financially. We wouldn’t dream of telling the kid who just won the Fortnite world championship that he shouldn’t be able to keep that money which he earned in every sense of the word. If the NCAA and it’s member schools want to make the argument that because football or basketball is their exclusive property, they essentially own the rights to the student athletes’ likeness, they have to be ready for what comes with that:  remember when Northwestern athletes attempted to form a union? Yeah, stuff like that. I don’t see the NCAA going down that rabbit hole.

2 hours ago, Coach Nowlin said:

My man BobRef, who similar is this to the Ed Obannon case that cost us gamers NCAA football game? 

The California legislation is a direct response to the O’Bannon case. It is essentially a legislative adoption of O’Bannon’s position in that case.

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15 hours ago, Bobref said:

Well, there is a perfectly reasonable opposing viewpoint. While the status quo may make for a more orderly college sports world, it also is denying young men and women the ability to better themselves financially. We wouldn’t dream of telling the kid who just won the Fortnite world championship that he shouldn’t be able to keep that money which he earned in every sense of the word. If the NCAA and it’s member schools want to make the argument that because football or basketball is their exclusive property, they essentially own the rights to the student athletes’ likeness, they have to be ready for what comes with that:  remember when Northwestern athletes attempted to form a union? Yeah, stuff like that. I don’t see the NCAA going down that rabbit hole.

The California legislation is a direct response to the O’Bannon case. It is essentially a legislative adoption of O’Bannon’s position in that case.

What if a college/university starts an e-sports team under the auspices of the athletic department and offers "athletic" scholarships for team members?  Then a governing body, the NCEGA (National Collegiate Electronic Games Association,  is formed and schools join in order to via for a "national e-sports championship".

 

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33 minutes ago, Muda69 said:

What if a college/university starts an e-sports team under the auspices of the athletic department and offers "athletic" scholarships for team members?  Then a governing body, the NCEGA (National Collegiate Electronic Games Association,  is formed and schools join in order to via for a "national e-sports championship".

 

You are prescient. Probably something like this in the next 5 yrs. Many colleges already offer scholarships to gamers.

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17 hours ago, Bobref said:

Well, there is a perfectly reasonable opposing viewpoint. While the status quo may make for a more orderly college sports world, it also is denying young men and women the ability to better themselves financially. We wouldn’t dream of telling the kid who just won the Fortnite world championship that he shouldn’t be able to keep that money which he earned in every sense of the word. If the NCAA and it’s member schools want to make the argument that because football or basketball is their exclusive property, they essentially own the rights to the student athletes’ likeness, they have to be ready for what comes with that:  remember when Northwestern athletes attempted to form a union? Yeah, stuff like that. I don’t see the NCAA going down that rabbit hole.

That's not the NCAA's issue. It's the issue of the professional leagues dumped in the laps of the NCAA. They have been able to leverage it to generate revenue to fund all their other sports which is great. But if you know anyone who actually works for the NCAA you know they are generally under paid compared to what they could make elsewhere. The schools are similar where the football and basketball programs often underwrite the costs for swimming and soccer and lacrosse as those sports generate very little revenue. The Fortnite guy won money because he won a Fortnite tournament. If these players want to make money in their sports go play in Europe or the D-league for basketball. Football is more difficult because there are essentially no options. I understand where allowing players to earn money related to their likeness comes from. I just think it opens up a huge can of worms that will essentially kills college sports in general. Since 95% of college athletes don't play men's basketball or football I would hate for that to happen.

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  • 3 weeks later...

California Pokes The NCAA With A Stick: https://deadspin.com/california-pokes-the-ncaa-with-a-stick-1838625277

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California Governor Gavin Newsom is expected to sign the state’s Fair Pay to Play Act into law today. That bill, which passed the state senate with overwhelming support earlier this month, forbids the state’s public colleges and universities from revoking the eligibility or scholarships of athletes who sign endorsement deals, hire agents, or otherwise make money off of the use of their names and likenesses.

This is a big moment in the longstanding fight to break up the NCAA’s amateurism scam—particularly if the bill’s passage inspires other states to follow suit. LeBron James is pumped!

However, please do pause your touchdown dances for the moment. This is not the definitive victory for fair pay that the headlines may make it seem.

For one thing, while S.B. 206, as it’s formally known, does allow college athletes to make money off of the use of their name and likeness while retaining their eligibility, it doesn’t force universities to actually pay them, directly, for the work they do. Under the law, a football player at UCLA may be able to monetize a YouTube channel or hire an agent without fear of losing his scholarship, but when he reports to practice the following day, he will be toiling for precisely zero dollars per hour of work. A bill that would force college athletic departments to cut actual direct paychecks to athletes has been proposed for New York state’s 2020 legislative session, which opens in January. That’s a much, much bigger fight, with a much murkier prognosis.

Secondly, California’s bill isn’t due to take effect until Jan. 1, 2023. That’s over three years for the NCAA, as well as California’s rich and powerful institutions (most notably including Stanford, USC, and the vast University of California system, all of whom opposed the bill [CORRECTION: This sentence initially referred to Stanford and USC as “public”; they did oppose the bill, but they are private institutions, and I’m an idiot]), to challenge the law in court, lobby for its reversal (the legislature’s up for election in 2020 and the bill’s opponents have no shortage of pilfered cash to donate), devise ways to punish California for having passed it, and devise ways to circumvent it. You can be sure there will be well-funded attempts at all of the above. It’s entirely possible this bill won’t ever take effect, and thus never will accomplish anything more tangible than netting some very good press for some California politicians.

In the meantime, the very least that California has accomplished is demonstrating that this can be done on a state level, and perhaps creating some running room for less powerful states that want to take similar measures. Which isn’t nothing! Earlier this month, in the wake of California’s Senate passing the Fair Pay to Play Act, Democratic legislators in brick-red South Carolina announced plans to file a bill similar to New York’s, requiring state schools to pay a (shamefully tiny) stipend to big-sport athletes and allow those athletes to profit off their names and likenesses.

This is progress! Progress is good. But the fight continues.

 

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