College Sports Leaders Play Both Sides of the Aisle in an NIL Pitch Process That’s Turned Political

Some of the biggest names in SEC sports descended upon the nation’s capital to encourage lawmakers to pass federal legislation around athlete compensation. How influential were the meetings? It depends on who you ask.

Last Thursday morning vehicles zipped along Constitution Avenue in Washington, D.C., as a parade of dignitaries from the Southeastern Conference walked toward the U.S. Capitol.

Passersby recognized the group of college football celebrities and gushed. A few drivers honked their horns and waved out of their windows. One man even stopped his vehicle in the street to scream a message toward the king of the sport: “Hey, Coach Saban!”

Alabama coach Nick Saban was among the group of college football’s most powerful leaders—coaches, athletic directors, school presidents and conference commissioners—who gathered for two days’ worth of meetings with congressional lawmakers and their staffs in a concerted effort to encourage them to pass federal legislation governing college athlete compensation.

“I feel like everyone agrees something needs to be done and wants to get it done,” says one SEC school administrator who was part of several of the Congressional meetings. “But how do you do it?”

Just a mile away, the University of Arizona hosted a summit on the future of college athletics, a live-streamed event that provided administrators and political leaders from across the country a front-row seat to the main attraction: NCAA president Charlie Baker.

During a sometimes feisty 90 minutes from the eighth floor of a downtown D.C. high rise, Baker delivered a timeline of a potential bill passage, urged patience in his leadership and claimed that the current structure of name, image and likeness (NIL) is “terrible” for many athletes. The former Massachusetts governor even held conversations with a group that has long been demonized by many in college athletics: NIL collective executives.

"With all due respect to the governor, what he said [about] what's happening with NIL, that it is terrible for athletes … That's why everybody hates the NCAA,” said Walker Jones, director of Ole Miss’s Grove collective.

It was a fascinating week that focused on the current state of athlete compensation, but the same questions that have hovered over the NCAA since it initially approached Congress four years ago to solve its self-made problem still remain.

After several interviews conducted by SI and observations, here is a breakdown of the meetings and where things stand going forward.

The “painstaking” process

Many have hoped Charlie Baker’s past political stints would help in his new role as NCAA president :: Josh Morgan/USA Today

During his appearance Thursday, Baker outlined the path in which a college athlete bill would become law.

The energy and commerce committees, one in the House and one in the Senate, are the originating points for any legislation, and Baker hopes a bill can emerge from one or both committees over the next four to six weeks before Congress’s traditional summer break begins in late July. That would give lawmakers time to examine the bill, offer their thoughts and prepare for the bill to shift to other committees that have jurisdiction. If it advances through other committees, the bill would head to the floor for debate and a potential vote for what Baker describes as the “fall campaign.”

“The process itself would feel slow and painstaking to a lot of people, but that’s because it would have to make a bunch of stops before getting to the floor, and then the big issue on the floor is how much would they try to limit amendments and debate?” Baker said.

There is a deadline of sorts. The 2024 presidential election cycle, which is ramping up now and truly begins at the start of next year, is a time when legislation comes to a crawl. Baker indicated that these were among his must-haves for a bill:

• the creation of a registry for transparency in NIL deals
• an agent certification process
• a uniform standard NIL contract
• state preemption of all NIL laws

There are other concepts college leaders hope will be included in a bill, though many are long shots, such as:

• deeming athletes students and not employees
• granting the NCAA protections from legal challenges, better known as an antitrust exemption

The politics of it all

While Baker’s plan is hopeful and optimistic, many lawmakers and college administrators say it is not realistic. There is public optimism, but there is private skepticism.

“During our meetings, one of the lawmakers told us, ‘Don’t expect much,’” says one SEC school official briefed on the matter.

The skepticism is justified. In nearly four years of the NCAA lobbying for a bill, there have been eight hearings and more than a dozen bills drafted. Not a single bill has advanced, and none have even held an audience for debate in front of a full committee.

You’ll be shocked to learn that Republicans and Democrats can’t agree on a solution—their continued disagreement is mainly over the scope of a bill. While Republicans want a more narrow, NCAA-friendly bill focused on NIL, Democrats want broad, athlete-friendly legislation touching on several topics including athlete health care, scholarships and revenue sharing.

It doesn’t help matters that one party controls the House (Republicans) and another controls the Senate (Democrats). A more narrow bill could squeak through the House, but what happens when it arrives in the Senate, where many lawmakers intend on granting athletes significant rights and further diminishing the NCAA’s authority?

Many Republicans from states with football powers wish to protect what’s left of amateurism and put restrictions on NIL deals. Some Democrats, who are traditionally pro–labor union, want more athlete freedoms and protections and wish for the NCAA’s amateurism model to further evolve.

“We know we are going to have to make sacrifices, but how far we can go depends on how far they are willing to meet us,” says one SEC school administrator who met with lawmakers last week. “How do you craft something that can both pass and you can live with?”

The House bill

Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) are trying to finalize a bipartisan bill around athlete compensation :: Jack Gruber/USA Today

During Wednesday night’s SEC reception on Capitol Hill, an important figure in the NIL space moved about the room glad-handing with coaches and administrators: Representative Gus Bilirakis, the Florida Republican who is a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Many college administrators who spoke to SI say Bilirakis’s soon-to-be-introduced NIL bill represents the most likely path for legislation to pass through the House.

Sports Illustrated obtained an updated draft of the bill, which is narrow in scope and focused primarily on NIL, including several “athlete rights protections” that many Democrat leaders would likely describe as unfair restrictions. One of the most significant restrictions: Athletes cannot sign NIL deals or sign with agents until 90 days after the athlete is first enrolled in school.

Others include:

• prohibiting athletes from striking NIL deals with entities that conflict with contracts in which the schools have entered unless the school consents
• prohibiting athletes from entering into deals related to gambling, tobacco products, alcohol and drug products or any other product that is “reasonably considered to be inconsistent with the religious values” of the school
• schools or conferences can impose reasonable limits on the amount of time an athlete may spend on endorsement activity related to NIL

The bill would establish the U.S. Intercollegiate Athletics Committee, a nonprofit independent committee that would oversee and manage NIL. Athletes would need to disclose agent contracts and NIL deals with the committee, including compensation packages. That information would be used to build a public database of NIL contracts and compensation details. The committee would have the right to discipline entities and agents through fines and suspensions for violations of the law and can refer violators to the NCAA for “eligibility restrictions,” including those who do not register their deals and contracts.

The Senate bill

In one of the most notable gatherings of the SEC’s trip to D.C., Saban, LSU football coach Brian Kelly, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey, ADs Scott Woodward (LSU) and Greg Byrne (Alabama), and Alabama president Stuart Bell met with House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R.-La.). Meetings were held in an office of an LSU fan whose work space is bathed in purple and gold.

A similar meeting transpired on the Senate side, too.

Senators Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) and Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), together drafting a college athlete bill, met with a similar contingent. Manchin and Saban are old friends dating back to their West Virginian roots, and Tuberville and Saban clashed as football coaches in the SEC West for nearly a decade.

The Tuberville-Manchin bill is in the final stages of being written. Sports Illustrated obtained a draft of the bill, which is not complete and could undergo changes as the senators receive feedback from college leaders and others.

The bill would grant a great deal of power to the NCAA, create a medical trust for athlete health care, include athlete prohibitions, and, unlike many others, mentions booster-led NIL collectives by name. It also permits collectives from assisting in recruiting and even providing “benefits” to athletes or parents as long as they are not for inducement purposes.

However, a collective can be involved in these functions only “if it is formally associated with an institution through an official contract,” the draft says. The collective also must provide “equal opportunities” to all athletes in all programs at the school.

The draft also:

• prohibits an athlete from striking NIL deals until they have completed at least one semester of college
• requires all athletes to follow a standard template contract created by the NCAA. All NIL deals are to be reported to the school and the NCAA, including compensation packages, within 30 days of striking the deals
• creates a centralized trust to (1) support travel for an athlete’s family to events and (2) cover out-of-pocket medical expenses for athletes. The trust is funded from “any revenue-generating college level tournament or playoff,” such as the CFP or NCAA basketball tournaments. Each tournament must deposit at least 1% of annual proceeds into the trust. Long-term medical expenses extend until an athlete reaches 28 years old or eight years after the date on which eligibility of the athlete expires (the student must have graduated to be eligible for such medical coverage)
• includes a host of athlete prohibitions similar to the Bilirakis bill, such as NIL deals promoting alcohol, gambling or drug products.

The bill would grant the Federal Trade Commission and NCAA enforcement powers. It would empower the NCAA to investigate and audit compliance with the law and require them to submit annual reports on compliance. The NCAA could dole out penalties including revoking licenses of entities or collectives to participate in NIL and refer violations to the FTC.

Like the Bilirakis bill, it would preempt all state NIL laws. The act would not make athlete employees, but it would not prohibit that from happening.

While this bill is described as bipartisan others collectively roll their eyes. Manchin is the most conservative Democrat. On this issue, his ability to sway party members is uncertain, but one SEC school official refers to Manchin as “the key” to getting the necessary 60 votes in the Senate.

Others aren’t so hopeful.

“I don’t think Manchin can deliver a single Democrat,” says one SEC insider.

A third bill

A few years ago, Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) introduced what many in the college sports world considered one of the more compromising and bipartisan NIL bills.

Soon, Moran will reintroduce a bill, but this time, he could have on board a couple of high-profile Democratic senators: Cory Booker of New Jersey and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. Details of a bill remain murky, but several college administrators who were briefed on the subject spoke to SI about the legislation.

Among the Democrats, Booker and Blumenthal have been the most closely involved with college athletic legislation. They previously released the College Athlete Bill of Rights and were expected to reintroduce it this session. Their involvement with a Republican senator on NIL legislation is significant.

But there are plenty of other important players in any college athletic legislation moving, including a new face to the issue, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), the ranking member of the Senate Commerce Committee; he’s in an important role, as any legislation needs to move through that committee. The committee chair is Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), another important figure who two years ago helped senators nearly reach a compromise on this issue. In the summer of 2021, just before states enacted their NIL laws, Blumenthal and Cantwell worked with Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) over a bipartisan effort that would have combined their bill proposals. It ultimately failed.

Will the Moran and Booker-Blumenthal bill be a solution? How will the Tuberville-Manchin legislation be received by Democrats? And when will the Bilirakis bill start its journey to passing the House?

As has been the case for four years, the NCAA’s slow, fruitless journey to legislation trudges onward without an end in sight.

“I haven’t talked to anybody yet who thinks the current way we are doing this is good for anybody,” Baker said last week. “That’s usually the first push you need to get folks to say, ‘What are we going to do to fix this?’”