One of the most powerful Republicans in the U.S. Senate is reintroducing a bill to govern name, image and likeness (NIL) that would “preserve the unique amateur nature of college sports,” he says.
Sen. Roger Wicker (R., Miss.), the ranking member of the committee believed to hold jurisdiction over any NIL legislation, is proposing a similar bill to the one he introduced in December 2020. His legislation would legalize college athlete NIL by using a national standard of rules that prohibits boosters and schools from utilizing NIL in recruiting.
The bill gives antitrust protection to the NCAA, schools and conferences in two ways. It prohibits former athletes from suing for retroactive NIL, and it explicitly notes college athletes should not be considered employees. The NCAA is fighting two ongoing court cases based on both of these elements.
In a change from the 2020 version of the bill, it allows conferences to enforce their own policies if they are consistent with the bill’s legislation. It removes some limitations on how athletes exercise their NIL rights, lifting prohibitions in the original proposal.
The bill would also protect athletes from deceptive business practices or exploitation, provide educational resources to athletes on NIL, and create an “Office of Sport” within the Federal Trade Commission to enforce the rules. The legislation would also direct the U.S. Comptroller General to submit a report to Congress on health and safety needs of athletes—one of the key issues (athlete health care) that has kept Republicans and Democrats from compromising on NIL policy.
“This renewed proposal will help protect college athletes’ rights to enter into name, image and likeness agreements, while also ensuring that these agreements are not pay-for-play schemes or incentives for college commitments or transfers,” Wicker said in a release announcing the bill.
Wicker is the ranking member and former chair of the Senate Commerce Committee. When Democrats took control of the Senate last year, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D., Wash.) took over as committee chair. Last summer, Cantwell and Wicker attempted to reach a compromise on bipartisan NIL legislation, but it failed most notably because of language regarding postgraduate healthcare benefits.
Wicker’s legislation is the Conservative version of an NIL bill introduced in August by five Democratic senators, including Cory Booker (D., N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.). The left-leaning policy is more broad in nature, including provisions for athlete transfers, health care and scholarships.
The reintroduction of Wicker’s Collegiate Athlete Compensation Rights Act comes at a time of seismic change within college athletics, with NIL in its second year. College coaches and administrators have repeatedly and loudly called for Congress to create a federal NIL solution to override a bevy of state laws that, quite literally, have schools operating by different rules. NIL rules are inconsistent, and enforcement is somewhat nonexistent, officials say, resulting in what they believe is a festering problem: the involvement of boosters.
Big-money donors and donor-led organizations, dubbed “collectives,” are distributing NIL-disguised payments to athletes in what officials believe are inducements to sign recruits, retain players and poach athletes from other teams.
College athletes rights and NIL have evolved into a partisan topic on Capitol Hill. Since 2019, at least eight such bills have been introduced in Congress and none have advanced to even the first step in the legislative process despite more than a half dozen hearings on the topic.
Republicans and Democrats have disagreed on both the scope (broad versus narrow) and concepts (permissive versus restrictive) of an NIL bill. Conservatives have wanted more narrow legislation that focuses exclusively on NIL and includes athlete restrictions and antitrust protections for the NCAA. Liberals have targeted a broad bill that encompasses athlete health care, lifetime scholarships, even revenue sharing and collective bargaining and provides athletes with more freedoms in NIL ventures.
Wicker’s announcement comes about a month after former football coach turned senator Tommy Tuberville (R., Ala.) told Sports Illlustrated that he and Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) are in the process of acquiring feedback withthe intent to draft an NIL bill of their own. Commissioners from the Power 5, as well as others, have sent Tuberville and Manchin feedback on what an NIL bill should encompass.
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