In the wake of the NCAA unveiling its potentially ground-breaking proposal last week, attention now returns in earnest to efforts on Capitol Hill.
The roll-out of the bold plan – which would for the first time allow schools to directly pay players – is the NCAA's clarion call to federal lawmakers. The NCAA hopes to at long last secure a reform bill that includes at least limited antitrust protection and codifies that athletes are not university employees.
For the NCAA, it is nothing short of mission-critical.
Legal threats are mounting by the day – two more lawsuits were filed within hours of each other Thursday. At the same time, the employment train continues barreling down the tracks by virtue of ongoing proceedings in the courts and related to the National Labor Relations Board.
Opinions surrounding the likelihood of Congress acting aside, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey told On3: "We've got a responsibility to engage in that venue [Congress] given the complexity of what is now in front of us and decisions not to do certain things in the past."
In recent weeks, On3's reporting team conducted exclusive interviews with more than 50 leading college sports voices – commissioners, athletic directors, collectives, coaches, athletes, NIL and legal experts and others – to gather insights on the industry's most consequential issues. As part of On3's State of College Sports project, we will publish their responses, along with accompanying stories.
Putting a finer point on the NCAA's efforts with Congress is Pittsburgh Athletic Director Heather Lyke, an ACC representative on the NCAA Division I Council.
She told On3 that it is "really important to get a bill and to get antitrust protection. Keep kids as students and protect all of college sports. If we start paying them, Division II and III [are at risk], and how do you even keep all of Division I together? So many people couldn't afford it."
REVIEWING PROPOSED FEDERAL LEGISLATION
Some believe college athletics finds itself in this predicament because it has long been resistant to change, clinging to an antiquated amateur model collecting cobwebs and failing to engage the athletes themselves.
"We have protected amateurism way too long," Texas A&M Athletic Director Ross Bjork told On3.
"We held athletes back from real NIL opportunities when it would have been much simpler. We haven't sat down with our athletes and asked them, 'What do you want out of this experience?' We've done a lot of this to ourselves. That's why the only viable entity, good or bad, is Congress because there has to be now federal oversight to have any sort of uniform standards."
Walker Jones is executive director of the Ole Miss-focused Grove Collective and a leader in The Collective Association who has testified in front of Congress. One issue, he said, is that the well-earned reputation of the NCAA does not do it any favors.
"You [would be] giving the organization that created a lot of these ills the power back, and the trust that they're going to go fix it with the athletes' best interests in mind, when all they have done for decades is not have the athletes' best interests in mind," Jones said.
"I think they're going to have a hard time getting that antitrust exemption because of decades of manipulating the marketplace." – Eric Prisbell |