A new federal bill introduced Thursday would make it illegal for the NCAA or other college sports associations to impose restrictions on the type or size of approval contracts that college athletes could sign in the future.
The bill, co-authored by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut) and Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Massachusetts), is the latest in a series of proposed national laws aimed at helping college athletes make money. and reform a multi-billion dollar college sports industry that several members of Congress consider fundamentally unfair. This proposal is the only option to date that offers no means to Congress, the NCAA or any other governing body to regulate what products athletes can support.
“Large-scale college athletics looks nothing more than professional leagues, and it’s time to stop denying college athletes the right to make money from their talents,” said Murphy, who said he sees current NCAA rules as a problem. of civil rights. “If mostly white coaches and NCAA directors can have unrestricted approval offers, why shouldn’t mostly black athletes be given the same opportunity?”
The new bill also specifically prohibits NCAAs or conferences from doing anything that would prevent athletes from organizing under collective representation to sell their licensing rights as a group. This type of group licensing is usually required to negotiate media rights, sales of T-shirts, and items such as video games, such as the college football video game that EA Sports announced plans to revive early. this week.
The NCAA has so far opposed the possibility of athletes being able to organize for any type of group licensing activity.
NCAA President Mark Emmert and other college sports leaders have called on Congress to help create uniform national rules that dictate how athletes can take advantage of their names, images, and similarities (NILs). Those leaders want the ability to create “railings,” which they say would prevent NIL payments from becoming undercover salaries that cross the line between amateurism and professional sports.
Murphy and Trahan, who played volleyball in Georgetown, believe that the NCAA crossed the line to professionalism a long time ago.
“As a former Division I athlete, I am too familiar with the NCAA business model that has been using the amateurish mask for decades to justify obscene profitability while student athletes have struggled to get through,” Trahan said in a statement. .
Murphy told ESPN that he believes Congress is unlikely to be able to act in accordance with college sports legislation in the first six months of the year. This makes it likely that some NIL state laws will come into force before a national plan is implemented.
Florida has already passed a law that will make current NCAA rules illegal in the state beginning July 1. Four other states are also considering legislation that will come into force at the same time.
The NCAA argued that a variety of state laws, many of which have unique differences, would create a chaotic environment in which schools operated under different rules, and potential athletes could choose their schools based on the state that provides them. better chances to cash in on approval offers.
The association stated its intentions to change its own rules in October 2019. However, they missed a self-imposed deadline to vote on the proposed changes last month and it is unclear when they will move forward. The most recent NCAA proposal has been significantly more restrictive for athletes than most state and federal legislative options.
“I wasn’t going to support what the NCAA did, so I’m not shedding a tear about the NCAA’s decision to delay,” Murphy told ESPN. “They have never been able to cope with this. I think it needs to be argued to allow the various state laws to come into force so we can see if the sky falls as the NCAA says.”
The bill presented by Murphy and Trahan will be considered along with other pieces of legislation that present a range of options for how deeply Congress will be involved in shaping the future of college sports.
Democratic Senators Cory Booker and Richard Blumenthal proposed a bill in December calling for far-reaching changes that go beyond compensation and NIL rights. Republican Senators Roger Wicker and Marco Rubio each have bills that give more freedom to NCAA leaders to determine what restrictions are needed to keep amateurism in college sports. Representative Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) also introduced a detailed proposal that would open the door to NIL payments, while creating some restrictions on what types of products athletes can support.
Murphy and Trahan’s bill also provides that any services that a school or conference provides to athletes to help them make the most of their NIL potential must be available to all athletes under their control. In other words, if a school hires a consultant to help build the brands of its football stars, all other athletes at the school must have the same opportunity.
The bill also calls for an annual report, funded by the federal government, to assess how much college athletes earn from approval agreements and break down that data on race, gender and sport to analyze the market.