On Texas Football: Is federal regulation of NIL looming?
In a special video edition of On Texas Football, Inside Texas’ Bobby Burton speaks with Eric Prisbell, On3.com’s senior college sports business writer, about happenings on the NIL front in advance of an NCAA meeting with members of Congress on Thursday on the subject.
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Burton summarized that the meeting, in which 11 state senators from around the country are on Capitol Hill in an attempt to move forward legislation that would legitimize and place put “under one roof” the idea of NIL in college sports.
Prisbell called the move a “Hail Mary” attempt by the NCAA to try to get a lifeline from Congress and some federal legislation set the stage on regulation of NIL.
“The NCAA sees the writing on the wall and where the winds are blowing,” Prisbell said. “And they know that they’re confronted with a clock that’s ticking right now, and that they’re running out of time. They see legislation litigation in the Johnson vs. NCAA case, they see the National Labor Relations Board filing a complaint against the NCAA, the Pac-12, USC and everything is moving toward implementing an employee model which would just turn the entire amateur model upside down.”
Prisbell added that the NCAA feels paralyzed that it cannot enforce its own rules without being subject to further legal challenges. “And they’re fearful of enforcing those rules for that reason,” he explains.
The NCAA is also confronted with a backdrop of an increasing number of states enacting laws proposing laws that really benefit the schools within their respective states in terms of NIL that creates a competitive advantage for those schools.
“We’ve seen it in Missouri, Arkansas, and we could soon see in Texas as well,” Prisbell said. “And it’s a significant competitive advantage.
“So they’re appealing to Congress and they’re saying we have three items on our wish list here. No. 1: we need a uniform NIL standard to make things uniform across the board, not this patchwork of state laws. We need transparency, we need some guardrails here.
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“No. 2 they want an official designation, a federal designation that student-athletes are not employees.
“And the third thing is they want at least limited anti-trust protection. And they can say hey, we want to be able to enforce our own rules without being fearful of further little litigation, legal challenges.”
Prisbell said the NCAA’s wish list faces an uphill climb.
“It’s a big wish list, and there’s several bills that are being circulated throughout Congress,” Prisbell said. “They really vary in terms of details. Some are really narrowly focused specifically related to NIL. Those are from the Republicans. Others are more broadly focused, you know, focused on revenue sharing, health care benefits, scholarship elements, and those are from the Democrats.
“So the clock is ticking because the election cycle is around the corner. And once that gets going, it’s going to be really hard to secure any federal legislation of any significance. They’re running out of time. And they got the work cut out for them, to say the least.”
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Go check out the video in its entirety for more info and how Title IX fits into the big picture of things.
