Student-athlete endorsements became legal in California when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the bill allowing California college athletes to receive payment and other monetary incentives from brand endorsements. The bill also bans schools from kicking athletes off the team if they commit to any paid endorsements.
The bill which will take effect in 2023 is the first to defy amateur sports definition in the U.S. This will make a huge impact on the NCAA’s existing ruling on college athletes getting paid as an amateur.
Student-athlete endorsements are strictly prohibited in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The NCAA is an organization that regulates student-athletes from 1000+ American institutions. It is also the governing body for several athletic programs of colleges and universities in the United States and Canada.
Breaking: California will allow college athletes to profit from endorsements, despite warnings from the NCAA that the measure will upend amateur sportshttps://t.co/TmG2uLRcxo
— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) September 30, 2019
Amateurism in the NCAA
The NCAA has existing rules and guidelines regarding student-athlete amateurism. The guidelines state that student-athletes are not allowed hiring agents, receive payment from the team they are participating in, accept cash incentives and commit to an endorsement of any brand while under the NCAA sports program. Violation of these guidelines will result in disqualification from attending any NCAA governed sports activity.
California bill favors student-athletes
The California bill was geared towards fairness in the sports industry. Schools are earning millions of dollars from these student-athletes but athletes, on the other hand, struggle financially. Scholarship grants are all these student-athletes are receiving, with only a handful of these colleges offer stipends for financial support.
The governor pointed out that,
Other college students with talent in literature, music, and technology can monetize their skills. On the other hand, student-athletes equally talented, sacrificing a lot physically and mentally in their respective sports are not being compensated while their colleges and universities rack in millions.
NCAA threatens to exclude all California based schools
The NCAA body called upon the lawmaker to veto the bill. The body believes that it will create an unfair recruiting advantage towards California based schools. They are working to revise the rules on the student making a profit off of their names, but it should apply at a national level and not on selected states as to not create biases.
If the NCAA pushes to ban California schools in all NCAA governed sports event, it will lose powerhouses such as University of Southern California, UCLA, Stanford, University of California, and Berkeley. In return, the NCAA will likely lose the support of the state’s 40 million people and the world’s fifth-largest economy.
I think it’s time. A lot of people are waking up and starting to see how much money that these universities are making off of players.
-Golden State Warriors forward Glenn Robinson III
