California set a new precedent last week when the state legislature unanimously passed a controversial bill called the Fair Pay to Play Act allowing college athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness.
Governor Gavin Newsom has yet to sign the bill but all indicators suggest that he will do so, which leaves all 58 colleges and universities in a pickle with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
And now this state might be next over California’s college athlete compensation bill.
Now that California’s state legislature has passed the bill allowing student athletes to be “fairly” compensated, it’s all up to Gov. Gavin Newsom at this point.
The NCAA is understandably up in arms about it and has even threatened to pull out of all 58 colleges and universities across the state.
The NCAA wrote a letter to Gov. Newsom calling the legislation “unconstitutional” and “harmful.”
The letter stated, “If the bill becomes law and California’s 58 NCAA schools are compelled to allow an unrestricted name, image and likeness scheme, it would erase the critical distinction between college and professional athletics and, because it gives those schools an unfair recruiting advantage, would result in them eventually being unable to compete in NCAA competitions.”
By all accounts, even with this significant threat against all California college athletes, it looks like Gov. Newsom intends to sign it, which means other states will soon follow California’s lead.
That next state is likely New York.
But it’s a little more aggressive than California’s. New York is taking it one step further and the new bill from Sen. Kevin Parker proposes that colleges will be required to pay the student-athletes directly, on top of being allowed to profit off their likeness, image and name.
Sen. Parker said that the amount of revenue produced by each individual school will be equally divided amongst all student athletes, which is obviously unfair considering some athletics clearly make more than the others.
Sen. Parker said, “It’s about equity. These young people are adding their skill, talent and labor to these universities. … You don’t need the shortcuts and the end-around because now we’re providing some real support for these student-athletes.”
It looks like other states will follow too.
Nancy Skinner, the state senator who wrote California’s bill, said she hoped that other states would adopt similar policies. Politicians in South Carolina, Maryland, Colorado, Washington and now New York have all discussed creating laws to change the way college athletes are compensated.
Whether those bills will pass and the state’s governor signing them into law still remains to be seen.
This looks like bad news for the NCAA and it might be the end.
But there is one thing that is being overlooked in all of this, which is that the only thing this will do is cause tuition to rise at each of these colleges and universities.
Even more to the point, it means students who aren’t associated with college athletics tuition will also raise too. All this does is just complicate it.
Plus, clearly men’s college football and basketball will have to carry every other athletic program.
So while they claim this will be some sort of “equality” move, it’s really the complete opposite and incredibly unfair to purely academic students.