
NCAA says athletes may profit from name, image and likeness - lkurtz
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/29/us/ncaa-athletes-compensation/index.html
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jalgos_eminator
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.

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maximente
yep. to be honest it's kinda inspiring that this all started with a single
body of a single state legislature. hopefully it shuts up cynics who say the
status quo cannot be overcome.

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labster
A single state legislature of a state large enough to form its own NCAA
competitor. A competitor that would have quickly got all the best athletes by
paying higher than slave wages. It’s only because of its monopoly position
that the NCAA the iniquity persisted so long; any threat to that academic cash
cow is a reason to cave.

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maximente
market fundamentalists would argue the size of the state doesn't matter; the
leak in the dam would spur all sorts of competition and effective resource
allocation that would eventually (perhaps more slowly) topple the system.

so it made it happen more quickly perhaps, but seems unlikely the outcome
would be different if you're a believer in so called "markets".

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SamReidHughes
It would have to at least have enough universities that it can plausibly form
a league. Wyoming wouldn't cut it. The relatively-populated states of
Pennsylvania and New York currently only have three serious football programs
each. California has seven (being charitable), and with centralized UC
leadership could quickly create more. Texas or Florida are the only other
plausible options.

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maximente
obviously counterfactual argument here but:

NBA has one and done rule currently which means talented high schoolers are
waiting 1 year, typically playing in college or abroad, before entering the
draft.

why not make some money alongside your 1 glide year by playing in the wyoming
league? you get to stay in the US, boosting your future earnings, have some
fun in college, but also earning some cash off of jersey sales and maybe lock
in some sponsorship deals with apparel/shoe companies earlier than your
competitors.

once one successful person does it, it's easy to see how it morphs into a
market for eager one and done players.

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SamReidHughes
An argument against that is you'll make less endorsement money the year after,
because nobody's going to watch Cheyenne U. stomping all over Windswept
Agricultural Institute.

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mattrp
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.

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dclusin
Those sports teams wouldn't be making any money without the talents of the
students that play on those teams. The TV contracts the larger teams are
negotiating are worth billions of dollars. The subsidies to all players are
two digit millions at best. The manner in which these universities are
profiting off of these largely minority athletes is obscene. To deny those
kids the right to profit from their own labor because of some trivial tax
implication while those same universities continue to make billions of dollars
is an absurd argument to make. Perhaps if the universities turned down the TV
contracts then maybe the scholarship argument might have some merit.

How do you think it would be received if Harvard tried to seize ownership of
Facebook because it gave Mark Zuckerberg a scholarship? Or that Harvard should
take ownership of Facebook because some kids that didn't goto Harvard won't
have the luxury of starting a billion dollar corporation.

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mattrp
I’m not saying that the current system is fair. What I am saying is that the
minute you make a student athlete a professional then it’s a logical outcome
that the value of their entire scholarship is taxable - did you consider that
in your remarks? I’m not defending the lack of fairness in the current system,
I’m saying the policy is a half attempt at reform and not well constructed. In
my view, it’s dumb to say a student athlete can’t work hard, can’t be a good
student and can’t be a amateur athlete at the same time. Clearly they should
be able to be all three... but there’s probably a better way to do it and one
that’s fair and doesn’t saddle athletes with unnecessary tax consequences.

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hbcondo714
Announcement from the NCAA:

[https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-
center/news/board...](https://www.ncaa.org/about/resources/media-
center/news/board-governors-starts-process-enhance-name-image-and-likeness-
opportunities)

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KevinEldon
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.

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Mountain_Skies
EA Sports is probably happy as this means they can bring back their previously
very popular NCAA Football series of games.

