The NCAA's highest governing body announced this morning that they support rule changes allowing student-athletes to profit off name, image, and likeness.
The release from the NCAA states that they also support compensation for "other student-athlete opportunities such as social media, businesses they have started, and personal appearances" with certain restrictions that they previously outlined back in October.
“The NCAA’s work to modernize name, image and likeness continues, and we plan to make these important changes on the original timeline, no later than January 2021,” Ohio State senior VP and acting group co-chair Gene Smith shares in the release. “The board’s decision today provides further guidance to each division as they create and adopt appropriate rules changes.”
The release also shares the following:
"While student-athletes would be permitted to identify themselves by sport and school, the use of conference and school logos, trademarks or other involvement would not be allowed. The board emphasized that at no point should a university or college pay student-athletes for name, image and likeness activities."
Next, the board's recommendation will move on to each NCAA division for further rule making and those divisions are expected to adopt new guidelines by January to implement by the 2021-22 academic year.
The board also states that it will need the help of Congress to modernize rules to ensure a number of things including critical issues like maintaining a distinction between college and professional athletes, and establishing a "safe harbor" for the NCAA to provide protection against lawsuits filed for NIL rules, and upholding NCAA values in regards to diversity, inclusion and gender equality.
That process with Congress, and each level of the NCAA coming up with their own guidelines, seem to be the next step in the evolution of the NCAA fully adopting new standards.
See the full release from the NCAA here.