[CTcard]

Around the horn on a bunch of ideas raised in this thread ...

State government in Sacramento is working on a bill that would allow California collegiate athletes to receive compensation for their name, image or likeness. The NCAA is threatening to ban California schools from NCAA championship competitions if the bill passes.

Lots of random laws get proposed every year by legislators following their own pet peeves. Does anyone know if this bill has any political legs to get anywhere?

I would imagine that if this looked like a real possibility, essentially all of the CA schools would lobby against it.

If student athletes can get paid for their name, likeness, etc., it opens the door wide for recruiting corruption.  Every 5 star high school athlete will be promised big money for their image if they commit to University X.  They money will come from rich alums and will be funneled through legit companies.  It will be difficult to police and will create a lack of parity in college athletics; mainly football, basketball, and baseball. 

This, I think, would be the main reasonable concern ... except for the fact that alums paying athletes would no longer be corruption, it would just be. I don't think it would be difficult to police because there would be no policing to do, it would be legal.
And I don't see anything in the text of the bill posted by 2006 that specifies "legit companies". 

It is not that there is parity in college athletics now, but it certainly seems this would contribute substantially towards increasing that problem.

The sport that walks this pro-amateur fence right is hockey.  Of all the largest pro leagues in North America, the NHL approach makes the most sense. 

It depends upon just what kind of sense you want to make.

Hockey is rather famous in Canada for chewing up and spitting out those who don't manage to make it to the NHL. It is not entirely unlike minor league baseball with so many who spend years in the minors then are spit out with no prospects; except that at least most minor league baseball players graduate from high school. Traditionally, in Canada, the top young players go to the Major Junior Leagues - which is basically the equivalent of minor league baseball except the best players started at 15 and you are kicked out once you hit 21. [Now they are mostly not allowed in until 16.]

The influence of the NCAA and improved junior hockey in the USA has been beneficial to most kids. Going to the NHL via the NCAA is now viable, and there are better routes to playing good hockey and keeping up one's schooling. But there are still a lot of kids who suddenly figure out at 21/22 that they aren't going to play in the NHL and have no real education or belief that they are capable of doing anything else.

None of this causes much uproar, unlike the concerns about amateurism/cheating/etc. in the NCAA. I think that is largely because nobody expects minor leagues to be ethical institutions looking out for the welfare of the kids involved, which is what people expect from universities.

I think it would be better for the universities as institutions to disentangle themselves from the ethical problems surrounding big time sports, but I am not so sure that on average it would be better for most of the kids involved in the sports.

Stanford would bolt from NCAA athletics. Having students making money is not in the U's DNA. Maybe in Tech but not sports.

I know this is a popular trope, but I tend to think it is not particularly true - with the caveat that it is not entirely clear just who the U is, and there are plenty of individuals with plenty of different opinions.

As far as I know, Stanford didn't balk at the expanded scholarship provisions, was already effectively guaranteeing scholarships for four years before that became officially possible, and in general is quite used to various folks have substantial side gigs. Stanford has a history of being concerned about the moral swamp associated with commercialism and cheating in big time athletics, but so far has never found a provision passed by the NCAA that it couldn't live with. In this case it is unclear whether paying players directly for the image and likeness would add to or diminish said swamp.

[CTcard]

Around the horn on a bunch of ideas raised in this thread ...

State government in Sacramento is working on a bill that would allow California collegiate athletes to receive compensation for their name, image or likeness. The NCAA is threatening to ban California schools from NCAA championship competitions if the bill passes.

Lots of random laws get proposed every year by legislators following their own pet peeves. Does anyone know if this bill has any political legs to get anywhere?

I would imagine that if this looked like a real possibility, essentially all of the CA schools would lobby against it.

If student athletes can get paid for their name, likeness, etc., it opens the door wide for recruiting corruption.  Every 5 star high school athlete will be promised big money for their image if they commit to University X.  They money will come from rich alums and will be funneled through legit companies.  It will be difficult to police and will create a lack of parity in college athletics; mainly football, basketball, and baseball. 

This, I think, would be the main reasonable concern ... except for the fact that alums paying athletes would no longer be corruption, it would just be. I don't think it would be difficult to police because there would be no policing to do, it would be legal.
And I don't see anything in the text of the bill posted by 2006 that specifies "legit companies". 

It is not that there is parity in college athletics now, but it certainly seems this would contribute substantially towards increasing that problem.

The sport that walks this pro-amateur fence right is hockey.  Of all the largest pro leagues in North America, the NHL approach makes the most sense. 

It depends upon just what kind of sense you want to make.

Hockey is rather famous in Canada for chewing up and spitting out those who don't manage to make it to the NHL. It is not entirely unlike minor league baseball with so many who spend years in the minors then are spit out with no prospects; except that at least most minor league baseball players graduate from high school. Traditionally, in Canada, the top young players go to the Major Junior Leagues - which is basically the equivalent of minor league baseball except the best players started at 15 and you are kicked out once you hit 21. [Now they are mostly not allowed in until 16.]

The influence of the NCAA and improved junior hockey in the USA has been beneficial to most kids. Going to the NHL via the NCAA is now viable, and there are better routes to playing good hockey and keeping up one's schooling. But there are still a lot of kids who suddenly figure out at 21/22 that they aren't going to play in the NHL and have no real education or belief that they are capable of doing anything else.

None of this causes much uproar, unlike the concerns about amateurism/cheating/etc. in the NCAA. I think that is largely because nobody expects minor leagues to be ethical institutions looking out for the welfare of the kids involved, which is what people expect from universities.

I think it would be better for the universities as institutions to disentangle themselves from the ethical problems surrounding big time sports, but I am not so sure that on average it would be better for most of the kids involved in the sports.

Stanford would bolt from NCAA athletics. Having students making money is not in the U's DNA. Maybe in Tech but not sports.

I know this is a popular trope, but I tend to think it is not particularly true - with the caveat that it is not entirely clear just who the U is, and there are plenty of individuals with plenty of different opinions.

As far as I know, Stanford didn't balk at the expanded scholarship provisions, was already effectively guaranteeing scholarships for four years before that became officially possible, and in general is quite used to various folks have substantial side gigs. Stanford has a history of being concerned about the moral swamp associated with commercialism and cheating in big time athletics, but so far has never found a provision passed by the NCAA that it couldn't live with. In this case it is unclear whether paying players directly for the image and likeness would add to or diminish said swamp.