EDITORIAL: NIL and void?

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Surprise, surprise. A couple of bills in Congress to fix a problem have gone . . . exactly nowhere. Even bills to “fix” college sports–now that universities are paying millions of dollars to athletes–have stalled. So a couple of senators–Ted Cruz of Texas and Maria Cantwell of Oregon–have teamed up to take the best of all the bills and combine the legislation in a new attempt at a fix. We’ll see.

Anyone who follows college sports for more than about five minutes will probably agree that the NCAA, its transfer portal with its unfettered allowance for players to transfer as many times as desired, along with the Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals that lure athletes away from their current teams, is chaotic to the point of confusion.

The latest–and, for the record it should be noted as bi-partisan–bill would:

limit unrestricted transfers in a student-athlete’s career to just once

pre-empt the state laws, which are now characterized as a “patchwork”

“This is a stability bill, not just an NIL bill,” Sen. Cruz said.

Sen. Cantwell added that it’s also about predictability. “Why did we do it? Because when you’ve got thousands of athletes being cut, hundreds of programs being cut, the risk to the whole infrastructure was too high to not try to get better predictability.” (If you’d like to keep up with the legislation in the papers, it’s called the Protect College Sports Act.)

The bill would also institute what’s being called the “Lane Kiffin Rule,” which would eliminate mid-season “coaching changes.” Now, does that just mean a coach can’t leave for another school during the season, a la Kiffin, or does that also keep a university from firing a coach during the season a la the University of Arkansas last year? That was unclear in the article in the paper last week. But we’d think that dismissing a coach even after the first game (which was done in Arkansas before) would still be up to the school.

The bill would also allow leagues to pool TV rights, which could add billions of dollars to the media game. The leagues wouldn’t be required to join media pooling, but those that do would have to put a percentage of the proceeds into women’s and Olympic sports and that’s an important point. This is not just about protecting sports for men and women, but the universitites are also seen as a pipeline for Olympic athletes to make Team USA.

As you may be able to tell, there’s a little something in it for everyone. Not everyone will be happy with everything in the bill, but at least it would provide some structure to the wild west of NIL deals, an unrestricted transfer portal and big money college sports.

While it may seem like a slam dunk to some, others are skeptical. Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said, “It gives the NCAA anti-trust exemptions that no other industry gets just so they can keep underpaying the athletes.,” he said. “Sure, there are some good things for players in this bill, but this seems like a great deal for the NCAA and the rich guys who run college sports, and a bad deal for athletes.”

Only time will tell how all this shakes out at the final buzzer, but at least someone’s doing something.

For this Congress, that ain’t nothing.…Read more by