(09-11-2019 05:45 PM)Mav Wrote:  

(09-11-2019 04:10 PM)Frank the Tank Wrote:  

(09-11-2019 03:12 PM)VNova Wrote:  https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces...20200SB206

Here's the law in question. It is very specific to a players ability to enter a contract to use their name, likeness, and image outside of official team activities/team contract conflicts.

Thank you for outlining what's actually being allowed here (essentially the Olympic model where amateur athletes can still collect endorsements) as opposed to the hysterical "OMFG! College players are getting paid! The HORROR! Kick California schools out of the NCAA!!!"

The Olympic model is completely sensible and the schools can avoid having to pay players directly themselves. I never understood the argument against it. (The typical complaint that I see is something along the lines of an Alabama booster that owns a car dealership can just sign up players to huge endorsement deals, to which my response would be that your own school needs better boosters that own businesses to take advantage of that model.) I certainly never understood how people that are otherwise free market capitalists that despise government intervention in "real life" suddenly become strident defenders of anti-capitalist rules and walking antitrust violations (if applied to any other industry) when it comes to the NCAA shutting down free enterprise on thousands of individuals and schools.

It's less "Tuscaloosa car dealer offers Tua $10,000 to advertise his car dealership" and more "Tuscaloosa car dealer offers 17-year-old Tua $100 an hour for a full-time attendance-optional car detailing job, with a weekly bonus if he starts and wins, but only if he signs with Alabama." There'll be a lot of funny business going on if we go the route everyone's saying we should be going down. I don't know how many universities would be happy to be a part of that sort of thing.

Well, sure - there will be compliance challenges. However, there are massive compliance challenges with the under the table street agent and shoe representative culture of today’s strict system, too.

If the NCAA actually wants to be reasonable, they’d state that the Olympic model is acceptable, but they still need to review and approve the compliance of every arrangement if an athlete wants to maintain his or her scholarship. Essentially, it needs to be a bona fide arrangement based on the person’s likeness as opposed to performance on the field (e.g. there can’t be performance incentives or negative non-performance penalties). Will it be easy? Probably not. However, “It’s really hard!” isn’t a strong legal argument for foreclosing students’ basic rights to their own likeness

I’m sure the NCAA will fight this tooth and nail to the bitter end because that has clearly been their M.O. on this issue, but I really think they’re going to lose on this one. Restricting outside compensation brings up so many potential restraint of trade issues (not to mention fundamental rights with respect to your own likeness) that this might be one of the few issues that would unify a split Supreme Court. You already see bipartisan support for athlete compensation in general, too.

The NCAA is going to have to adjust and they’re going to do it because its members will do it. I’m a Big Ten that has a ton of respect for Jim Delany, but his statement from a couple of years ago suggesting that their members would essentially go to Division III if athletes started getting paid was complete and utter B.S. Northwestern isn’t giving up its athletic money and branding, so it will play the new game just as Ohio State, Alabama and USC will play the new game.