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Year End Awards

Biggest Turning Point: California’s NIL Law

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an NIL law, which is set to take effect in 2023.getty images

Long an increasingly loud discussion surrounding college sports, the volume on the name, image and likeness debate reached a crescendo in 2019, when California became the first state to pass a law that protects student athletes. The law, signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), himself a former college baseball player, says college athletes can market and sell their own rights and the NCAA cannot rule them ineligible for doing so.

Throughout the decade, the NCAA’s rules on amateurism have been challenged legally, most notably in the O’Bannon v. NCAA case. Student athletes should have the same rights as every other student on campus, the plaintiffs reasoned.

But even when the NCAA lost its case, change was minimal. The two most substantial benefits athletes gained over the last half of the decade were cost of attendance stipends — worth $2,500 to $6,000 annually for a scholarship athlete — and virtually unlimited access to food. Those enhancements were not insignificant, costing athletic departments at the highest level millions in new expenses.

But it didn’t make the push for name, image and likeness rights go away. If anything, the movement gained momentum. It’s not about college athletes getting rich off endorsement deals, the proponents said. It’s about student athletes having the right to.

20

U.S. states considering legislation to follow California’s lead with their own name, image and likeness bill for college athletes.

The ongoing Alston v. NCAA lawsuit presents yet another legal challenge to the collegiate model. Meanwhile, the number of states contemplating a law like California’s has grown to 20, with Missouri most recently saying it will propose a bill protecting college athletes.

The NCAA has felt the pressure. The governing body isn’t about to succumb, but it did form a working group to study extremely limited ways in which college athletes could have access to their rights while keeping the connection to education. Final proposals aren’t expected until January 2021.

“We must embrace change to provide the best possible experience for college athletes,” said Ohio State President Michael Drake, who chairs the NCAA’s board of governors. “Additional flexibility in this area can and must continue to support college sports as a part of higher education. This modernization for the future is a natural extension of the numerous steps NCAA members have taken in recent years to improve support for student athletes, including full cost of attendance and guaranteed scholarships.”

As the decade comes to a close, the NCAA’s amateurism ideal is under full assault. Five senior U.S. senators revealed earlier this month that they would form a working group to look at a national law, rather than having laws that differ state to state. Many thought it would require an act of Congress for the NCAA to change and as a new decade begins, Congress could be doing just that.

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

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SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

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