The CA law is a joke. It's a no look pass. A head fake. Don't fall for it. It has more to do with creating State power to regulate college athlete compensation off of their likeness, which is already inevitable. The NCAA has already had working groups established to create a set of rules that comply with the ridiculous Title IX laws while at the same time providing athletes the ability to profit off of their likeness or image. The NCAA was set to introduce their guidelines in October. States like CA see enormous revenue potential that they want to control rather than having the student-athletes control it for themselves. That's why the law was written for all student-athlete compensation to run through the universities for "oversight". This is a bunch of crap and wholly unconstitutional on it's face. The CA law is merely a pre-emptive strike to beat the NCAA to the punch. They want to pressure the NCAA to create the upcoming new rules in a way that keeps the States and universities heavily involved in these new revenue streams. This ensures that new bureaucracies with bloated payrolls and bureaucrats and departments and budgets are generated at these universities or state capitols. That opens the door for the States and/or the universities to assess "fees" from the compensation earned by athletes to "oversee" these new rules. That's what the CA bill is all about. It has nothing to do with "Fair Pay to Play" For those of you who have followed politics for any period of time, you should know by now that proposed bills are ALWAYS the opposite of how they're named. This is done purposely to generate support. It's a form of propaganda. It's pathetic and disgusting to be quite honest.
Everyone should want all citizens, including college athletes, to have exclusive ownership of their own image and likeness. I 100% support athletes making money off of their likeness. This is about fundamental private property rights. However, I should maintain the right and not assign it to anyone else...ever! It's not right that the NCAA is preventing an athlete from earning extra income for giving lessons to a group of preschoolers. It's equally not right for a regulatory body or the state to collect my compensation. They're not entitled to that income. That's what the CA law does. It's a fundamentally anti-capitalist law.
What the NCAA is trying to do is find a way to establish a uniform set of rules to address the issue so that athletes don't have to navigate through a patchwork of different state laws to make sure they're in compliance. States like CA aren't helping the issue by creating their own rules.
Regardless of the outcome, it's a foregone conclusion that college athletics will no longer be what we've loved for most of our lives. Student-athletes and fans of college athletics root for their schools based on pride, love and affiliation. The emotion is pure and remains strong for the rest of their lives building legacies in their families for generations. That's the reason why college football stadiums are always sold out and in excess of 100,000 in attendance. Once compensation is introduced, it now opens the door to creating an upper tier of schools where the most booster money to spread around is located. It also opens the door for sleazy sports agents to represent athletes and, eventually, have the right to collective bargaining. That's the end game. This is why they want to keep those revenues centralized within the universities and the states.
So basically it would be Texas, USC, Notre Dame, UCLA, Florida, Ohio State, etc and then everyone else. I don't blame the NCAA for trying to keep the focus on the "student" in student-athletes. It's beyond futile at this point because of the amount of money involved in college athletics.
The best way to eliminate this issue is to work with all the professional leagues to allow elite student athletes to turn pro right out of high school. Let individuals profit from their own image, likeness, skills and labor just like everyone else in our civil society.
