West Virginia introduces legislation prohibiting NCAA from investigating athletes for NIL activities

A bill introduced in the West Virginia House of Delegates would prohibit the NCAA from investigating athletes for NIL activities. With the House v. NCAA settlement set to establish an NIL clearinghouse that requires all third-party NIL deals of $600 or more must be approved by a clearinghouse that will vet contracts, the legislation could provide protections to West Virginia athletes if approved.

The five-page bill introduced this week would also allow insitititiouns to provide NIL dollars and share revenue and prohibit athletes from engaging in specific NIL deals, including alcohol, drugs, tobacco and gambling.

The bill also states that “nothing in this article shall be construed to qualify a student-athlete as an employee of an institution because the student-athlete engages in name, image, or likeness opportunities.” The NCAA has pressed Congress to rule that athletes are not employees in an ongoing battle to ensure athletes are not classified as employees.

West Virginia becomes the latest state to introduce legislation that pushes back against the NCAA. Institutions across the country are operating under a patchwork of state laws. Lawmakers in Missouri and Texas have passed bills in recent years to prevent the NCAA from launching investigations into NIL activities. Missouri’s NIL law even allows high school recruits to enter into NIL deals and start earning endorsement money as soon as they sign with in-state colleges.

NCAA president Charlie Baker and multiple Power Four commissioners have repeatedly visited Capitol Hill in the last 18 months, lobbying lawmakers for a federal NIL bill that would include a state preemption to override the patchwork of state NIL laws.

The NCAA halted all investigations involving third-party NIL collectives last March. That has continued, but with the House v. NCAA settlement, the Power Four conferences are creating a new enforcement arm to police violations of the rev-sharing cap. It’s expected this new enforcement entity will create a penalty structure for violators, too.

“No institution, athletic association, athletic conference, or other organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics may: open an investigation, penalize, suspend, take other adverse action, or declare a student-athlete ineligible from intercollegiate athletic competition,” the bill states.