U.S. Senators Teaming Up on Bill to Create National NIL Standards

A bipartisan group of senators announced Thursday they’re working on a critical breakthrough for college athletics’ name, image and likeness policies.

After years of stalled attempts, is a college athletics name, image and likeness breakthrough at hand in Congress? A bipartisan group of U.S. senators thinks so.

Democrats Cory Booker of New Jersey and Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut have been joined by Republican Jerry Moran of Kansas in crafting a “discussion draft” of a bill they believe will “reform college athletics and prioritize athletes’ health, education, and economic rights,” according to a joint release announcing the proposal Thursday. If it becomes law, this could provide the national NIL framework that college leaders on many levels—from NCAA president Charlie Baker to Southeastern Conference commissioner Greg Sankey and on down the line—have long sought.

“This bipartisan proposal represents a major step forward, and I’m grateful for the partnership with Senators Blumenthal and Moran,” Booker said in the release. “It would make college athletics fairer, safer, and more just, and empower more young people to succeed in sports and beyond.”

The College Athletes Protection & Compensation Act proposes the following:

• Establishing the College Athletics Corporation (CAC), a central oversight entity that would set, administer, and enforce rules and standards to protect athletes who enter into endorsement contracts. Athletes would be allowed to have representatives assisting them with contracts, finances, marketing and brand management, and institutions would be prohibited from punishing athletes for receiving food, rent, medical expenses, insurance, tuition, fees, books and transportation from a third party.

• Establishing a medical trust fund & cover injured athletes’ out-of-pocket costs. Schools and the medical trust fund would cover the out-of-pocket expenses for injuries and other long-term conditions resulting from athletes’ participation in sports. The trust fund would cover medical expenses for college athletes diagnosed with significant long-term conditions related to their participation in college athletics, including chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) and any other traumatic injuries.

• Funding academics until graduation, whenever that occurs. Athletes would retain their aid covering tuition, books and other fees until they graduate. Institutions would be required to continue offering the aid in the case of suffering a career-ending injury and being cut from a team.

• Establishing health, wellness and safety standards to protect college athletes from serious injury, mistreatment, abuse and death. These standards would focus on conditions such as cardiac health, concussion and traumatic brain injuries, illegal performance enhancers and substance abuse, mental health, overuse injuries, heat-related illnesses, sexual assault, sexual harassment and interpersonal violence. It would also protect trainers, physical therapists and other medical personnel by prohibiting coaches and other non-medical personnel from attempting to influence or disregard decisions that put athletes’ health and safety first.

• Schools would be required to report revenues and expenditures of each athletics program, the average number of hours college athletes spent on college athletic events, and academic outcomes and majors for college athletes.

• Athletes would be required to take financial literacy and lifestyle development courses where they would be taught personal budgeting, debt, credit, interest rates, contracts, tax liability and other issues relating to their endorsements and income.

• Ensuring gender parity in tournaments. Athletic associations must provide men and women college athletes access to the same facilities and services during tournaments.

“For far too long the NCAA and powerful special interests have held sway, putting athletes second to dollars,” said Blumenthal. “Athletes deserve national NIL standards, a medical trust fund, scholarship safeguards, protection against mistreatment and abuse, and more. America’s athletes—all 500,000—deserve these basic rights.”

Added Moran: “It is no secret that college athletics have grown into an increasingly profitable, billion dollar industry, however the rules surrounding athlete compensation have not been modernized. Together, Sens. Booker, Blumenthal and I are releasing this discussion draft to empower student athletes while maintaining the integrity of college sports that we all know and love.”

This week at SEC media days, Sankey reiterated his longstanding belief that Congress needs to produce national legislation that lends some uniformity to the NIL landscape. The patchwork of state laws has been a “race to the bottom,” in Sankey’s words, riddled with self-interest and creating a chaotic landscape.

“If states will not enforce the laws, and states are going to prohibit the NCAA or conferences from enforcing these reasonable policies, Congressional action is then the only way to provide a national uniform standard for name, image, and likeness activity and to draw the lines around the boundaries that do not become simply pay for play,” Sankey said Monday. “The reality is only Congress can fully address the challenges facing college athletics. The NCAA cannot fix all of these issues. The courts cannot resolve all of these issues. The states cannot resolve all of these issues, nor can the conferences.”

The senators are soliciting feedback on the proposal from stakeholders in college athletics until Aug. 20.