NCAA Votes To Allow College Athletes To Profit From Name, Image And Likeness

[dfwabel]

Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics examining major restructure of collegiate sports and will send recommendations to NCAA.  Note that the Knight Commission is largely made up of current and retired university presidents and chancellors.

 

From the release:

Quote

The Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics, a leading voice for college sports reform, informed NCAA President Mark Emmert today that it will examine new models to restructure college sports, citing the challenges created by the “highly commercialized environment” for Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) football and some NCAA Division I sports, particularly men’s basketball.

 

Commission Co-Chairs Arne Duncan and Carol Cartwright wrote in the letter to Emmert that the Commission intends to explore “alternative structures for Division I college sports, with a special focus on the impact of FBS football.” The Commission is seeking far-reaching reforms that will better prioritize student-athletes’ education, health, safety and success.

 

In an appearance last week at a Sports Business Journal conference in New York, Duncan offered some restructuring ideas that might be explored. For example, big-revenue athletics programs might be placed in a new division or organized and managed outside of the NCAA.

 

“Just let them play by a different set of rules – and be upfront about it and be honest about it,” said Duncan, the former U.S. Secretary of Education.

Full letter can be seen at the link above.

 

 

Meanwhile, yesterday, NCAA President Mark Emmert sat down with the Aspen Institute to complain that public does not trust the NCAA anymore.

He wants congressional reform rather than state doing it themselves.

 

Here is the full interview, with Emmert starting at the 13:00 mark.

 

[dfwabel]

The NCAA national convention was in Anaheim last week.  A recap of three key items relating to this topic came about.  In order of most immediate impact to the athletes, we have:

 

1. NCAA to Allow Potential Olympians to Receive More Benefits

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Athletes designated as elite by nationally recognized groups may receive additional developmental training expenses from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee or national governing bodies, including travel for parents, guardians, coaches, training partners, training partners and sport experts.

 

“Student-athletes who are training and preparing for elite competitions like the Olympics can face difficult financial choices, and NCAA rules now provide additional flexibility to allow these students to prepare to compete for their country while also maintaining their eligibility for college sports,” said M. Grace Calhoun, chair of the Division I Council and athletics director at Penn.  “Additional access to high-level coaching will help them achieve their goals for international competition.”

This became effective immediately.

 

2. The NIL working group has a new name, the Federal and State Legislation working group.  They produced a new statement that really said nothing. However, their short term goal is to have recommendations for the NCAA Board of Governors this April that can lay the groundwork for legislation to be voted by the membership next January.

Excerpt:

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We are following closely the activities of state legislatures and interest by federal lawmakers, and we share the goal of a system that is inclusive, equitable and fair to our more than 500,000 athletes nationwide. We are committed to working with key stakeholders to achieve that end.

 

Student-athlete benefits have expanded significantly in recent years and now amount to more than $3.5 billion annually in scholarship support alone. While we agree that changes in our rules are in order, we are striving to avoid the myriad of potential consequences that could upend a system that has opened doors for millions of young people to earn degrees and pursue dreams, in many cases debt-free. We are especially concerned about abuses and potentially harmful influences with respect to recruiting, a practice unique to college sports.

 

A patchwork approach — where each state possibly has different rules — may exasperate this concern and would make it impossible to conduct intercollegiate athletics at a national level. These varying laws could also undermine our commitment to provide student-athletes with broad-based offerings and comprehensive support.

 

3. NCAA President Mark Emmert gave his annual address to the membership. A transcript of his entire "whoa is me" speech can be found HERE,

Excerpt:

Quote

Overall, if you were to look at the student-athlete experience of a decade ago and compare it to the one today, you would see dramatic improvements. We're all proud of that and we should be. That's an important, important set of changes we've seen in a relatively short period of time. So when critics say, gee, I'm not sure that this is fair, I'm not sure students are getting all that they should in this process, it's really easy for us to just kinda say, really? Are you kidding me? Have you been paying attention?

 

But it's important that we just don't wring our hands. It's important that we don't just say, they don't get us, they're not paying attention, they're lazy, they don't understand. No, I think rather than that, we've got to stop and think and ask ourselves, what's leading them to that conclusion? Why are they thinking those things? What gets them there? I think it's also important that we assume that they're asking these questions and raising these issues with good intent. They want the same things that we want: More opportunities for our student-athletes to achieve in their lives, in the classroom and on the court.

 

So we've got to ask ourselves, what makes them think that something is not fair? Where is this disconnect? How do they reach that conclusion that causes people to be so critical of something that's--we look at it and see as so good? I think part of it is, primarily, most people see just a sliver of college sports and we know this, right? They see March Madness, the College Football Playoff, they see game days on TV, the College Game Day. They see multi-million dollar contracts, they see elaborate facilities, they see big Hollywood productions.

 

All of those things we're pleased with and proud of, but when we look at it from afar we shouldn't necessarily be surprised that some people look at this and say, gosh, what's changed in the relationship with the students while all of this has been going on? Something doesn't seem quite right when they juxtapose those two things. They've seen revenues and expenditures explode in some cases across college sports and, then, on the face of it, the relationship with the students seems to be about the same, to them.

 

Now, we know, everybody here knows, that there is so much more to college sports than just that sliver, right? We know it's a half a million student-athletes, 24 different sports spread across three divisions, having a huge impact on all of those wonderful young men and women. But we've also got to recognize and acknowledge that the world is changing right now and it's changing really, really rapidly and people's perceptions are changing with it. We have to stay focused on what makes college sports unique and serves those students, but we've also got to adjust to the times.

 

But an AP story has some details not just from his address, but from others, including more from Penn AD, M. Grace Calhoun:

Quote

Grace Calhoun, University of Pennsylvania athletic director and the chairwoman of the NCAA’s Division I, said small groups of athletic administrators are examining three areas where athletes could earn money.

— Student-athlete work product, which covers things such as starting a small business, earning money for writing a book or charging for lessons in their sport. This is likely the easiest area to ease restrictions because currently the NCAA is granting a high percentage of waiver requests to permit these activities.

— Individual licensing , which covers endorsement and sponsorship deals with a single athlete.

— Group licensing in which athletes could earn a percentage of profits from something like the old NCAA Football video game. The game was discontinued in 2014 when the NCAA was facing a federal antitrust lawsuit for improperly using athletes names, images and likenesses.

Calhoun said group licensing presents the most challenging questions.

“At the end of the day, we’re dealing with student-athletes and when we look at our principals, we’ve established we won’t cross that line from them being students to turning into employees,” she said Wednesday. “So when you start looking at a group acting together, keeping the line as a student becomes a little more complex.”

 

[B-Rich]

17 hours ago, dfwabel said:

3. NCAA President Mark Emmert gave his annual address to the membership. A transcript of his entire "whoa is me" speech can be found HERE,

 

I DIDN'T KNOW THAT MARK EMMERT IS A HORSE...

 

 

whoa

/(h)wō/

exclamation

1. 1.

   used to express surprise, interest, or alarm, or to command attention.

   "whoa, that's huge!"

    
2. 2.

   used as a command to a horse to make it stop or slow down, or to urge a person to stop or wait.

   "whoa, hold on a minute, Fred!"

    

    

   woe

   /wō/

   noun

   LITERARY

   noun: woe; plural noun: woes

   1. great sorrow or distress.

      "they had a complicated tale of woe"

       

      • things that cause sorrow or distress; troubles.

        "to add to his woes, customers have been spending less"

         

   Phrases

   woe betide someone
   used humorously to warn someone that they will be in trouble if they do a specified thing. "woe betide anyone wearing the wrong color!"

   woe is me!
   an ironic or humorous exclamation of sorrow or distress.

    

    

   (yeah, probably just a mistake in voice recognition software, but I couldn't resist) 

[dfwabel]

Not a good day for Mark Emmert and University president's on Capitol Hill yesterday testifying on NIL.

 

USA Today's Steve Berkowitz put some of the Q&A on his Twitter feed.

 

https://mobile.twitter.com/ByBerkowitz

 

 

[goalieboy82]

On 1/28/2020 at 10:19 AM, B-Rich said:

 

I DIDN'T KNOW THAT MARK EMMERT IS A HORSE...

 

 

whoa

/(h)wō/

exclamation

1. 1.

   used to express surprise, interest, or alarm, or to command attention.

   "whoa, that's huge!"

    
2. 2.

   used as a command to a horse to make it stop or slow down, or to urge a person to stop or wait.

   "whoa, hold on a minute, Fred!"

    

    

   woe

   /wō/

   noun

   LITERARY

   noun: woe; plural noun: woes

   1. great sorrow or distress.

      "they had a complicated tale of woe"

       

      • things that cause sorrow or distress; troubles.

        "to add to his woes, customers have been spending less"

         

   Phrases

   woe betide someone
   used humorously to warn someone that they will be in trouble if they do a specified thing. "woe betide anyone wearing the wrong color!"

   woe is me!
   an ironic or humorous exclamation of sorrow or distress.

    

    

   (yeah, probably just a mistake in voice recognition software, but I couldn't resist) 

[Brian in Boston]

NCAA Board of Governors moves toward allowing student-athlete compensation for endorsements and promotions

[Seadragon76]

12 hours ago, Brian in Boston said:

NCAA Board of Governors moves toward allowing student-athlete compensation for endorsements and promotions

 

While this is nice and all, something tells me that the NCAA is going to do everything they can to make sure the student athletes don't enjoy this new found freedom.