Charlie Baker Op-Ed: College sports are overdue for change

Written by Charlie Baker, president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association

College sports deliver $4 billion in college aid annually to 500,000 student-athletes, serve as the premier U.S. stage for many women’s athletic competitions, and are America’s Olympic pipeline with 75 percent of 2022 Team USA attending NCAA schools. College sports are a uniquely American treasure, providing life lessons to its participants while contributing to society in so many ways.

But for too long, rules meant to govern and protect one generation of student-athletes have been broadly applied to a generation whose needs and priorities have shifted dramatically.

Putting student-athletes’ interests first, helping them fairly and securely capitalize on the economic opportunity associated with their name, image, and likeness (NIL), and enhancing protections for their physical, mental, and academic health are long overdue. At the NCAA, we have begun making those changes.

Over the last year, the NCAA has enacted a sweeping array of policy changes that represent the most concerted effort in at least a generation to update the rules and processes overseeing collegiate athletics. Chief among these changes, the NCAA recently created a student-athlete health insurance fund, which will help all member schools across NCAA Divisions I, II, and III provide injury insurance coverage for student-athletes who get injured playing their sport and are still in treatment for up to two years after they leave school.

Additionally, all Division I schools must also provide degree completion funds for up to 10 years after college athletes stop competing, as well as mental health services. Scholarships will also be protected regardless of athletics and schools must begin offering academic counseling, financial literacy, and career preparation services next year.

Beyond expanding support for student-athletes’ wellbeing, we’re also looking exhaustively at our rules and assessing whether they are relevant and applied fairly. For instance, we’ve taken recent action in areas ranging from marijuana testing to sports betting to allow for better outcomes for student-athletes found to have violated rules, based on the severity of their infraction. Our goal is clear: a faster, fairer NCAA with the needs of student-athletes at the center of everything we do.

As it relates to name, image, and likeness rules too, we believe strongly that student-athletes can and should be able to fairly capitalize on their NIL potential. We’re thrilled by the countless stories of how NIL compensation is improving student-athletes’ lives — and even the lives of others through their charitable work. However, just as anyone that owns a stock or buys a house in this country is afforded consumer protections, student-athletes entering NIL contracts should be too.

This month, our Division I Council took a meaningful step towards creating a more transparent, student-athlete-centric NIL marketplace by introducing proposals to develop a voluntary registry for NIL service providers; require disclosure and reporting of certain elements of NIL agreements; establish best practices for NIL contracts; and create an education program for current and prospective student-athletes, as well as service providers and licensees. These proposals will all give student-athletes access to more information, while reducing the risk that they sign contracts with hidden negative impacts.

While we can — and are — adapting the NCAA, we can’t expand our own legal authority. Our new NIL bylaw proposals will improve outcomes for student-athletes in an uncertain environment, but there is opportunity to do more.

We want to partner with Congress to go further in curtailing inducements and empty promises from would be agents, preventing third parties from tampering with students and setting a national standard where an unworkable patchwork of state laws currently exists.

Schools, conferences and the NCAA are exploring ways to expand the benefits we provide to student-athletes. However, to fully pursue this priority, we need Congress to affirm that student-athletes are not employees. Without that action, courts may implement one-size-fits-all mandates that require all student-athletes across all sports and all divisions receive identical benefits. Providing the same benefits to a Division I football player whose program generates enormous revenues and a Division III swimmer whose program generates none would be untenable. Maintaining a full roster of programs would be challenging, and women’s sports and Olympic sports would be harmed most.

And by working with Congress, there is an opportunity to strengthen Title IX protections for women in this new era of booster collectives and outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender, race or sport in NIL agreements.

Working across party lines to find consensus on issues that matter to my constituents was my strength when I served as Governor of Massachusetts. Today as President of the NCAA, I believe we have an open window to do the same, creating new opportunities for the 500,000 student-athletes I now have the honor of serving. I look forward to working with Congress to do it.

(Top photo of the NCAA logo: Mitchell Layton / Getty)