NCAA Announces Support For Allowing Students To Be Compensated For Name, Image And Likeness
The NCAA Board of Governors announced Wednesday that they “supported rule changes to allow student-athletes to receive compensation for third-party endorsements both related to and separate from athletics,” according to the statement released by the NCAA.
The statement also said that the players would be allowed to use their name, image and likeness by identifying themselves, both by sport and by school, but would not be allowed to use the logos of either schools or the conference, as well as other trademarked entities. It was also emphasized that “at no point should a university or college pay student-athletes for name, image and likeness activities.”
“Throughout our efforts to enhance support for college athletes, the NCAA has relied upon considerable feedback from and the engagement of our members, including numerous student-athletes, from all three divisions,” Michael Drake, Ohio State president chair of the board, said in the statement. “Allowing promotions and third-party endorsements is uncharted territory.”
Gene Smith, Ohio State’s athletic director and the co-chairman of the working group that developed these new rules, said in the statement that these rule changes are being planned to come into action “no later than January 2021.”
“The NCAA’s work to modernize name, image and likeness continues,” Smith said. “The board’s decision today provides further guidance to each division as they create and adopt appropriate rules changes.”
With all this new ground in the fight for collegiate athletes to benefit from their own persona also came a setback in another area, with the new name, image and likeness rules not allowing for group licenses, something that would be necessary for a new NCAA Football video game, which has not been released since July 9, 2013 with NCAA Football 14.
Val Ackerman, Big East commissioner and co-chair of the Federal and State Legislation Working Group, said that group licensing is “unworkable in college sports” because there is not a union or bargaining unit, according to Nicole Auerbach of The Athletic.
The statement also talks about the legal troubles that could be faced if Congress does not back the NCAA’s steps to assist college athletes.
“The evolving legal and legislative landscape around these issues not only could undermine college sports as a part of higher education but also significantly limit the NCAA’s ability to meet the needs of college athletes moving forward,” Drake said. “We must continue to engage with Congress in order to secure the appropriate legal and legislative framework to modernize our rules around name, image and likeness. We will do so in a way that underscores the Association’s mission to oversee and protect college athletics and college athletes on a national scale.”