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.
Gene Smith, who is co-chair of the NIL working group, said there is not cap on the amount of money an athlete can make during this process as long as they meet guidelines.
— Matt Murschel (@osmattmurschel) April 29, 2020
Gene Smith says there's no compensation limits that were discussed by the group but that they'll develop guardrails through disclosure and that "abnormal payments to ensure that they're consistent with the level of compensation that should be provided relative to the activity."
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) April 29, 2020
There will be ripping of the NCAA today — including some by me — for foolishly trying to over-regulate when schools could just chill and let the players make their money, but let’s pause and think back to only 10 years ago when this seemed impossible.
This is a huge step.
— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) April 29, 2020
Val Ackerman said figuring out how to regulate booster involvement in the recruiting element vis a vis NIL is "the source of the most concern about how to make it workable in our system." Notes that booster definitions may get redefined in different tiers.
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) April 29, 2020
Curious if this will impact how schools market games, considering they slap athletes on every promo, basically to sell tickets.
— Ben Jones (@Ben_Jones88) April 29, 2020
Mark Emmert and Michael Drake say that Congressional action is NOT a prerequisite for the NCAA legislation on name, image and likeness. But – this is simply my take – the confidence with which they are talking it seems like they think it's a done deal.
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) April 29, 2020
