Congress can’t save NCAA from ‘royal mess’ of competing state laws by July, Rubio says
Congress is not going to be able to create a national standard for college athletes’ name, image and likeness rights before state laws around the nation go into effect July 1, one prominent U.S. senator said Tuesday.
The NCAA, unable to come to a consensus on its own standard and hampered by an ongoing Supreme Court case that may determine the limits of its power, had pinned its hopes on a legislative solution to the patchwork of different state laws.
“Oh, I doubt that. We’ve tried for a year. Ideally, the NCAA would have fixed it. They’re going to have a mess on their hands,” Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who introduced his own legislation last year, told McClatchy.
Florida is among five states where athletes will be able to sign autographs for money or profit off their social media presence on July 1. Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama and New Mexico also start that day — though each state has different laws. South Carolina passed legislation last month, but it doesn’t go into effect until May 2022 — enough time for NCAA or Congress to pass a nationwide policy.
Sixteen states have passed some version of a name, image and likeness law.
NCAA rules do not currently allow players to make money from their name, image and likeness. Athletes often face suspension or ineligibility for accepting cash from outside entities such as boosters or shoe companies. Schools, too, can be sanctioned.
“Florida schools are going to argue that they’re compelled by state law,” Rubio said. “I don’t know what the NCAA is going to do about it. They’ve let it linger this long.”
Sports Illustrated reported Tuesday that a bipartisan group of U.S. senators is hopeful it can craft legislation capable of attracting 60 votes in the evenly divided Senate before July 1..
Rubio is doubtful. Republicans and Democrats have introduced wildly divergent pieces of legislation to deal with the issue. Some colleagues, Rubio said, don’t want college athletes to get anything more than they get now, a view the senator called “irrelevant” given what has happened in the states.
Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina said in 2019 that opening the door to name, image and likeness payments was “not the answer.”
“I thought we were trying to clean up money in college athletics and the NCAA has decided rather than fight what California did, let’s just roll over and say we’re going to do it everywhere,” said Burr, who played football at Wake Forest in the mid-1970s on an athletic scholarship.
“The NCAA sort of thinks of itself sometimes as a quasi-governmental entity,” Rubio said. “It really isn’t. Eventually states are going to act. I think the reason why states are acting is to force the NCAA’s hands and if they don’t, then Congress will have to step in. Otherwise we’re going to have a royal mess on our hands.”
The mess would come from schools in different states having different rules regarding their athletes — which could show up quickly in recruiting.
North Carolina lawmakers, for example, have not passed any legislation allowing college athletes to profit. The state’s four ACC schools compete against schools in Florida and Georgia, both of which will allow it on July 1.
“I’m not that optimistic we’re going to get something done by July 1 but that’s not going to be catastrophic. We’ll be OK. We’ll figure out a temporary kind of bridge until we get national legislation,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips told reporters.
A quick nationwide or NCAA-wide resolution is also on the mind of NCAA President Mark Emmert. Emmert said last week in an interview with The New York Times that he would recommend the NCAA approve new rules related to name, image and likeness “before, or as close to, July 1.”
The NCAA has had years to confront the issue. State legislatures have been discussing legislation for a while. The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard a challenge to the NCAA’s amateurism rules, one that could reshape college athletics and redefine the NCAA’s role as governing body. That decision is expected by the end of June.
“We have wanted to, from an NCAA standpoint, not get ahead of the Supreme Court decision and some of the things that are in legal places right now. That’s why you haven’t seen any kind of standard done by the NCAA. But we’re running out of time for that July 1 date,” Phillips said.
“There may be an opportunity, and that’s what you’re kind of hearing about and we’re talking about, for the NCAA to have some generic type of (NIL) legislation that can bridge that gap, bridge that time between July 1 and whatever period of time it would take to get to a national standard. We just don’t want to circumvent what’s happening legally.”
In the long term, though, Phillips said somebody — the NCAA or Congress — has to take action at some point to forge a permanent solution that cobbles together the patchwork of state laws.
“What can’t happen is for that to stay around for several months or another year,” Phillips said. “That really undermines fairness and equity in recruiting.”
For more North Carolina government and politics news, listen to the Under the Dome politics podcast from The News & Observer and the NC Insider. You can find it on Pandora, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Megaphone or wherever you get your podcasts.
This story was originally published May 18, 2021 at 6:10 PM.
