NCAA board OKs athlete compensation for image, likeness

(AP) — The NCAA took a major step Tuesday toward allowing college athletes
to cash in on their fame, voting to permit them to “benefit from the use
of their name, image and likeness.”

The nation’s largest
governing body for college sports and its member schools now must figure
out how to allow athletes to profit — something they have fought
against doing for years — while still maintaining rules regarding
amateurism. The NCAA Board of Governors, meeting at Emory University in
Atlanta, directed each of the NCAA’s three divisions to create the
necessary new rules immediately and have them in place no later than
January 2021.

Board chair Michael Drake, the president of Ohio
State University, said the NCAA must embrace change and modernize “to
provide the best possible experience for college athletes.”

But such changes will come with limitations, he said.

“The
board is emphasizing that change must be consistent with the values of
college sports and higher education and not turn student-athletes into
employees of institutions,” Drake told The Associated Press.

A
group of NCAA administrators has been exploring since May the ways in
which athletes could be allowed to receive compensation for the use of
their names, images and likenesses. The working group, led by Ohio State
athletic director Gene Smith and Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman,
presented a status report Tuesday to the university presidents who make
up the Board of Governors.

Smith and Ackerman’s group laid out principles and guidelines, endorsed by the board, to be followed as NCAA members go about crafting new rules and tweaking existing ones, including:

Some college sports leaders fear allowing athletes to earn outside income could open the door to corruption.

“One
of the most distinctive things about college sports is this whole
recruitment process,” NCAA President Mark Emmert told the AP. “The whole
notion of trying to maintain as fair a playing field as you can is
really central to all this. And using sponsorship arrangements, in one
way or another, as recruiting inducements is something everybody is
deeply concerned about.”

Ackerman and Smith said the challenges
lie in determining what regulations need to be set in place; what
markets athletes should be allowed to access; what entities and
individuals they should be permitted to work with; and whether the
schools themselves could provide funds to athletes through licensing
deals.

The NCAA’s move came a month after California passed a law
that would make it illegal for NCAA schools to prohibit college athletes
from making money on endorsements, autograph signings and social media
advertising, among other activities.

“California has made it clear
that we won’t accept any arbitrary limitations on college athletes’
right to their name, image, and likeness,” state Sen. Nancy Skinner, who
co-sponsored the bill, posted in Twitter.

The California law goes
into effect in 2023. More than a dozen states have followed with
similar legislation, some of which could be on the books as soon as next
year.

“This is another attempt by the NCAA at stalling on this
issue,” said Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College
Players Association, an advocacy group.

It’s hard to say exactly
how much athletes could fetch on an open market for their names. It
could range from a few hundred dollars for creating personalized video
and audio greetings for fans through companies such as Cameo, to
thousands of dollars for doing television advertisements for local
businesses.

NCAA rules allow for an athletic scholarship that
covers tuition, room and board, books and a cost-of-attendance stipend.
The cost of attendance is determined by the institution using federal
guidelines and generally ranges from $2,000-$5,000 per semester.

Gabe
Feldman, director of the Tulane University sports law program, said the
NCAA has taken an important step by recognizing its rules are
antiquated.

“But the ultimate question is how are the rules
modified to both allow college athletes to profit from their name, image
and likeness while also being consistent with the collegiate model,”
Feldman said.

The NCAA has said California’s law is
unconstitutional, and any states that pass similar legislation could see
their athletes and schools being declared ineligible to compete. But
the board also said it hopes to reach a resolution with states without
going to court.

In addition to pending state laws, North Carolina
Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Walker has proposed a national bill that would
prohibit the NCAA and its member schools from restricting athletes from
selling the rights to their names, images and likenesses to third-party
buyers on the open market.

“We’re going to continue to
communicate with legislators at the state and federal level,” Emmert
said. “That’s one of the things that the board is asking of me and my
staff and the membership in general, and hopefully we can avoid anything
that’s a direct conflict with our state legislators.”