The most interesting moment of Wednesday’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on college sports came to an end when Sen. Cory Booker (DN.J.), a former college football player at Stanford, went through a number of factors that distinguish a school like Clemson. your competitors
At the other end of the exchange was Clemson’s director of athletics, Dan Radakovich, who was there to argue for a national set of rules governing the rights of university athletes to benefit from his name, image, and likeness. The gist of what Radakovich and other leaders like NCAA President Mark Emmert have been arguing for months now is this: Without the help of Congress, including national law and an antitrust exemption that would protect the NCAA from certain types of demands, different standards created by each state legislature would create an unequal and unfair environment for recruitment.
But if that’s the logic that applies to the need for help from Congress, Booker asked, what about the fact that Clemson’s football coach Dabo Swinney earns $ 9.3 million a year, while others coaches in the same ACC division earn a third or one? fourth so much? What about the top-of-the-line Clemson facilities that are designed to fly recruits? There is no impetus to standardize and regulate those advantages or to suggest that the large differences between Clemson and Wake Forest are detrimental to college football.
“This argument applied to students is a double standard,” said Booker.
Two hours back and forth between a handful of senators and witnesses on Wednesday, including NCAA President Mark Emmert, revealed little that we didn’t know about the current plight of the NCAA situation: almost no one is buying what they are selling. . .
While committee chairman Senator Lindsey Graham (RS.C.) set the September 15 goal to craft a bipartisan proposal around name, image, and likeness legislation, there are already a variety of bills in the two houses of Congress and, clearly – a variety of opinions on how far to bow to the wishes of the NCAA.
Sports Illustrated reported that a draft of a plan drawn up by the Power Five conferences and presented to the committee included concepts such as only allowing athletes to sign marketing deals in their second semester and putting other restrictions, or “guardrails,” such as college athletics on Officials call them: In deals that would conflict with school sponsorship deals.
Booker repeatedly criticized the plan, saying it was “too restrictive,” while Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) Often asked questions with a wider lens about whether the NCAA was generally doing enough in health standards and It safeguarded and protected scholarships for athletes who are injured and cannot compete at the same level.
“He is asking us for an antitrust exemption and a preference and time is not on his side,” Blumenthal told Emmert. “My suggestion is to upgrade your game with other protections before asking for that type of immunity.”
At the other end of the discussion was Graham, who repeatedly touted how familiar he is with college football as a fan with connections to both Clemson and the University of South Carolina. Graham said he “came to accept that basic rights must be legislated,” but seemed caught up in the notion that an unregulated environment around name, image, and likeness would lead “rabid alumni” to engage in wars for recruits. they would “destroy”. college athletics as we know it. ”
Ultimately, when the NCAA comes up with its own package of name, image, and likeness standards and whether Congress can find an acceptable line to actually vote on a bill will determine how quickly this issue is resolved. Based on Congressional interest in this issue on both sides of the aisle, it seems almost certain that a bill they finally vote on would be less restrictive than the NCAA itself proposes.
But the NCAA will not be rescued from this disaster without taking its well-deserved dose of public humiliation by elected officials. Booker criticized Emmert for doing little to address the athletes’ rights issues that arose in a hearing six years ago, while Blumenthal said he criticized the NCAA in COVID-19 groups that emerged from soccer programs that led to players to campus this summer, calling it a “potential slow motion catastrophe.”
At one point, in fact, during a debate over whether some schools had practiced non-renewal of scholarships to seriously injured players, something Emmert and Radakovich denied, Blumenthal issued a warning that lying to Congress was punishable by law.
It was a moment that perfectly captured the arrogance of college sports: a denial of something that clearly happened and is happening, reducing the credibility of the NCAA. Congress certainly has more important things to worry about right now in the midst of a pandemic than trying to save college sports from itself, but at least someone is still willing to keep them honest.
