Should college athletes at California’s public universities be compensated for the use of their names, images, and likenesses? California legislators say yes. NCAA says no.
In a political world where bipartisanship is hard to find, this week the California Assembly and Senate showed otherwise. State legislators walked a different path—of unanimous consent—regarding a controversial bill associated with public college athletics in the Golden State. Legislators voted 112-0 to enact what has been referred to as ‘The Fair Pay to Play Act.’
Athletic Business describes the legislation this way. “It would enable student-athletes from the state’s 24 public colleges and universities to be paid indirectly via sponsorship agreements. The bill would also make it illegal for schools or organizations, such as the NCAA, to restrict or punish student-athletes for seeking these kinds of agreements.”
The bill was introduced by state Senator Nancy Skinner (Dem, 9th District, Bay Area). It’s now in the hands of Governor Gavin Newsom, who has 30 days to decide whether he’ll sign the legislation into law.
State Senator Nancy Skinner (D-CA) (photo, Philadelphia Inquirer)
When asked why she introduced the legislation, Skinner told the CBS affiliate in Sacramento, “For too long college athletes have been exploited by a deeply unfair system. Universities and the NCAA make huge amounts of money from TV deals and corporate sponsorships of their teams.”
Basketball star LeBron James concurs. In a series of tweets this week the Lakers’ star wrote, in part: “This law is a GAME CHANGER. College athletes can responsibly get paid for what they do and the billions they create.”
Data to support the pending law comes by way of documenting the amount of compensation that revenue-generating college athletes (football and basketball) would have received if their work was deemed ‘fair-market labor.’ A Drexel University study did just that.
For the period 2011-15, Drexel researchers found that lost financial value over four years was $457k per player in FBS football and $1.1 million in major college basketball. Across the country, the total amount lost for all players in both sports totaled $6 billion.
California universities and the NCAA do not support the pending law, and they gave Gov. Newsom reasons why he should not sign it. Claiming that the state legislation is “harmful” and “unconstitutional,” the NCAA wrote directly to the Governor, saying that “it would erase the critical distinction between college and professional athletics and, because it gives those schools an unfair recruiting advantage, would result in them eventually being unable to compete in NCAA competitions.” The Los Angeles Times reported that NCAA President Mark Emmert and 21 other members of the organization’s board of governors signed the letter.
NCAA President Mark Emmert (photo, NCAA)
The NCAA’s argument is based on a fundamental belief, which Inside Higher Education, puts this way—“legislation would erase the distinction between college and professional athletes. The NCAA has long maintained paying athletes would undermine the concept that collegiate sports are at the amateur level.”
While that argument applies well to revenue-generating college athletics of yesteryear, it doesn’t fit the current environment. Save for the lack of player compensation, major college football and basketball are pro-like enterprises in terms of facilities, coaching salaries, media coverage/revenue, and support staff. USAToday reported recently that the nation’s 230 major public sports-playing universities generated over $10 billion in revenues in 2018, and spent almost all of it on their athletics operations. As Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) commented recently: “Everyone is getting rich off college sports except the players.”
The legislation before Newsom removes two major stumbling blocks associated with ‘the play for pay’ debate in college athletics. Athletes wouldn’t be paid for playing, and they wouldn’t be compensated directly from athletic budgets. Instead, athletes would be compensated for the use of their names, images, and likenesses.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, California (photo, AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli/Mercury News)
No matter what Newsom decides, it’s very likely that the courts will make the final call. Skinner, for one, is confident of the outcome. “Numerous legal scholars assert that…the legislation…is constitutional, and that an NCAA ban of California colleges from championship competition is a clear violation of federal anti-trust law,” she wrote in a statement released to the press.
Legal scholar Marc Edelman, who testified before the California Legislature in July, agrees. “The NCAA should make modest reforms to allow California member colleges to do what is mandated by their state law,” Edelman wrote this week in Forbes. “However, if the NCAA believes too much of its hype, it may attempt to ban California member colleges and open the door to an antitrust suit that even the best lawyers in America could not win.”
“If American legal history teaches us anything,” Edelman concludes, “it is that even the most powerful industries…have found themselves subject to the inevitable reach of the Sherman (Antitrust) Act.”
The stakes are high. First, there’s the matter of equity and justice for players. Second, there’s the matter of keeping higher education honest. As legendary University of Chicago president, Robert Maynard Hutchins, once wrote in Sports Illustrated, “No other country looks to its universities as a source of athletic entertainment.” Shouldn’t players share the financial benefits? As Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) commented recently: “Everyone is getting rich off college sports except the players.”
California wants to change that.
