AAC commissioner calls on NCAA to introduce an NIL plan – 'Period'

ARLINGTON, Texas – Mike Aresco, the American Athletic Conference commissioner, is calling for the NCAA to introduce a new NIL proposal rather than merely hope for Congress to restructure the space with federal legislation that, he says, could include its own set of unintended consequences.

Aresco’s comments, made in an exclusive interview Tuesday with On3, came at the same time a wide swath of stakeholders convened in Indianapolis for an important two days of NCAA NIL meetings. The purpose of the meetings, which include student-athletes, is to solicit additional feedback on the NIL subcommittee’s recent work to draft an updated NIL proposal – a so-called Plan B – in case the pursuit of a federal lifeline falls short.

“We should be the ones to put forth a plan – period,” Aresco said. “And, yeah, have Congress give us some antitrust protection, only because we don’t want to be sued every two minutes over something.”

Aresco discussed concerns about some of the federal bill drafts that have been unveiled and why a revenue-sharing model could be on the horizon. He characterized the patchwork state NIL laws as “approaching chaos” that is “fast becoming ridiculous.” 

And yet, he added: “I don’t think you want them [Congress] writing your rules. That’s what concerns me about a third party running college sports.”

That’s a reference to multiple bill drafts including the creation of third-party entities governing the NIL space. Most recently, that element was included in the bipartisan “College Athletes Protection and Compensation Act of 2023,” introduced by Sens. Cory Booker (D-NJ), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Jerry Moran (R-KS). 

Aresco anticipates a series of disparate bill drafts circulating that ultimately could make it tougher to get anything passed. He called the Booker, Blumenthal, Moran bill a “different animal – it is sort of taking over college sports.” 

What concerns Aresco is college sports venturing down the rabbit hole in pursuit of federal legislation without a Plan B cemented “because we’ve been asking about that.” He noted that, when he was chair of the conference commissioner group, that the Plan B question was posed directly to NCAA President Charlie Baker and others.

Increased transparency and a mechanism for policing egregious NIL activity – million-dollar deals that lack a quid pro quo, for instance – should be paramount in a Plan B, Aresco said. 

The prevailing notion among many stakeholders, he added, is that “you can’t have a lot of rules, a lot of constraints, you just can’t – because it’s probably not going to work. You’re going to get sued. Congress is going to be reluctant to support you if you have all sorts of rules [limiting] NIL … I don’t think you have to micromanage it.”

‘We do have to think about’ revenue-sharing model

When asked if it is time for leading stakeholders to at least start exploring what a revenue-sharing model would look like, Aresco chose his words carefully.

“I think, to some degree, we’ve probably thought a lot about it,” he said. “My own feeling is if we are forced into some kind of quasi-employee status, and forced into pay-to-play, at that point what we might want to do is have Charlie Baker lead the charge and have some kind of national collective bargaining so we have some stability – without unionization, without employee status. Because you don’t want coaches firing players and all the things that come with employee status that probably wouldn’t be conducive to team sports.

“Certain big schools can afford to pay players more. They will want to pay players more. And then you have Title IX. So, you have a lot of issues that you have to sort out. But I think we do have to think about it.” 

Legal experts believe college sports is on a slow march toward at least some athletes being designated as employees of their schools, conferences or the NCAA. That would usher in the era of collective bargaining and dramatically reconfigure the paradigm. 

Aresco believes the employee model would be a net negative both for schools and student-athletes. He acknowledged that a new college sports model could, theoretically, include revenue sharing without employee status.

NIL reform must balance support for all sports

Still, he said, the concern is that you don’t want to “bankrupt a lot of programs,” he said.

“At some point, it’s like a union that oversteps and then the company shuts down and goes out of business,” Aresco said. “And then nobody has a job. We don’t want schools to drop sports. If down the road there is some kind of revenue sharing, and that may be coming. Without endorsing it, I can certainly see it potentially coming.”

Aresco wanted to be clear: He is not endorsing a revenue-sharing model. 

“We have all thought about it,” he said. “But the minute you start formulating plans [to model out a potential structure], it makes it look like it’s a fait accompli. We’re not there yet.”