"What would players do to earn their salaries? Play? Or win? In the real world, you are paid what you merit. So what about a school with a 2-10 football team and an 8-24 basketball team? Would players there be paid less? And if they won the championship the next year, would they be paid more? Could the players unionize? If so, could the football players strike for a bigger piece of the pie? Will band members and cheerleaders be eligible for payment, too? Will the NCAA have to create another division in the legal department to handle the Title IX lawsuits that will come from this?"
--our editorial, Dec. 19
Some of those questions have been answered in the latest decision by the NCAA--the one released last week, which shook, like an earthquake, the amateur world of college sports. Apparently individual college athletes can be paid by businesses that would like to use their "name, image or likeness," also called NIL. It's what most people call an endorsement. And while some initial questions have been answered by this shift in college sports, there remain many more.
Wally Hall's column on Thursday questioned whether UCLA could offer a movie role to get an athlete to join its program. Get some Hollywood director in here, give this running back a walk-on (and paid) speaking part, and UCLA could win 12 games this year! After the NCAA's announcement, we can't think of a reason why such a situation wouldn't happen. We'd be surprised, actually, if it didn't.
We suppose the NCAA saw the writing on the wall, or at least the writing in the case law. Last month the United States Supreme Court ruled 9-0 on giving athletes more education benefits, and the opinion was full of hints that the supremes could rule against amateurism in college athletics soon enough. And state legislatures have already begun passing laws to allow their colleges to pay the best athletes. The NCAA saw where the crowd was going and decided to catch up.
"This is an important day for college athletes since they all are now able to take advantage of name, image and likeness opportunities," said NCAA president Mark Emmert.
Athletes can even get agents now for these so-called NIL arrangements. So, whereas some questions have been answered (including some of our own from last year), other questions pop up.
Will the rich get richer? That is, will schools with rich and sports-interested alumni get all the best players? How will Arkansas--any school in Arkansas--compete with, say, UCLA or Texas or Florida or Michigan? Somebody said kids couldn't appear in an ad for alcohol or gambling operations. But why not? Those are legal going concerns, right?
Mr. Emmert's statement last week didn't provide all the answers. Or even most of the answers. "The current environment--both legal and legislative--prevents us from providing a more permanent solution and the level of detail student-athletes deserve." And he isn't kidding.
Terry Prentice, a senior associate athletic director for these kinds of things at the University of Arkansas, said there are so many questions by athletes themselves that his Zoom meeting last week lasted two hours. And he expects more such meetings. And he expects endorsement agreements involving Razorbacks to be announced soon.
"You'll see some very recognizable names appearing in commercials or doing sponsored posts on social media or announcing autograph signings," Prentice told our reporters. "There will be [endorsements for] restaurants, jewelry stores, swimwear, car dealerships, outdoor equipment places. It will run the gamut.
"You'll see some names of student-athletes on camps and clinics in their hometowns. Some student-athletes now have the opportunity to start their own businesses and show their entrepreneurial spirit."
Ladies and gentlemen, this is just getting started.
Fundamentally, most Americans probably don't begrudge any other American from making a buck. And it is a fact that college athletes are the bedrock of a multi-billion-dollar industry. This isn't 1970. We think most Americans have probably evolved on their thinking about college athletics and whether they should be paid. Especially after seeing the spikes in coaches' salaries over the last few decades.
But there are many questions, and many paths in front of us. Some athletes in Arkansas colleges have already taken the first steps. Something tells us that the NCAA's decision, as a governor of Arkansas named Frank White once said, has opened a whole box of Pandoras. And next year, and in five years, college sports will look very different.
Whether it will be better is another question.