The NCAA caved so fast on this. Now they're going to try to get ahead of it and get their cut of the endorsement money that the athletes will be earning soon. This would be a good time for athletes to come together and demand that the NCAA stays out of their lives outside of sports.
So let’s create a policy that benefits maybe the top 200-300 athletes out of the tens of thousands competing at the collegiate level? Yeah that makes sense. They on scholarship are already getting what — $300k to a million in scholarship subsidies, travel, access to upgraded facilities and trainers, supportive schedules, all to develop their professional career both on and off the field. And that’s not enough? I agree that a total ban on income is ridiculous but why not set a reasonable wage scale and let those who need / want to work earn at that scale? Opening up athletes to profit on their likeness while they also take scholarships just had all sorts of issues with it the least of which are the tax issues (why isn’t the scholarship now taxable income?) At a time when most families of non scholarship students struggle to pay for college and many students struggle with loads of student debt, why are on earth are we creating more haves / have nots? Especially when such policies won’t benefit the average athlete and certainly not the regular student body.
Announcement from the NCAA:<p><a href="https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/board-governors-starts-process-enhance-name-image-and-likeness-opportunities" rel="nofollow">https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-center/news/board...</a>
All of these athletes are going to need an easy to use platform to monetize their likeness. Something like Cameo, but adapted to collegiate athletes and expanded to support endorsements and appearances. I imagine services that support paid fan clubs with exclusive content will do well too.