California Governor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into law that will allow college student-athletes in the state to make money from their images, names or likeness. In addition, the bill also protects student-athletes from being kicked off the team for being paid.
The law will go into effect January 1, 2023, and will not apply to community colleges and also bans athletes from endorsement deals that conflict with their schools’ existing contracts.
Newsom announced the signing on Twitter saying, “Colleges reap billions from student athletes but block them from earning a single dollar. That’s a bankrupt model. I just signed the Fair Play to Pay Act with @KingJames — making CA the first state to allow student athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness.”
However, NCAA President Mark Emmert, who has been outspoken against the bill, believes allowing college athletes to get paid will create an “existential threat” to athletics and their governing business model.
In an interview with CBS Sports, Emmert explained that, “My personal view is folks, in general, think that every student-athlete is going to be making hundreds of thousands of dollars.” However, he believes that the reality of the situation is that, “One or two will be making some significant amount of money. Nobody else will.”
Emmert has also expressed the complicating nature of working with players to help them get compensation. “You’ve got 50 different states with 50 different labor law rules,” Emmert says. “If you move into what are, in essence, labor negotiations, you have to do that state-by-state … It just falls apart in its complexity.”
It has long been debated whether or not the NCAA should be paying their student-athletes, considering the amount of revenue they generate every year off their student-athletes, mainly football and basketball. The NCAA also has been extremely strict on their no-pay policy, many student-athletes have had the hammer dropped on them for anything no matter how small it may have been.
Membership to the NCAA is voluntary, but it is the largest governing organization for college athletics. It does allow members to get valuable scholarships, however, the reason of their hardline “no-pay” is to maintain the academic missions of colleges and universities.
Currently, California is the only state with such a law. Considering it won’t go into effect for over 3 years, it will be a long time before any student-athlete sees a penny and even longer until we see the unforeseen outcomes of the legislation.
