30 Oct The Corrupt NCAA Loses: Athletes Can Now Profit Off Likeness

One of the most corrupt organizations in America finally lost. California passed a law overriding the NCAA that allowed athletes to profit off their likeness. Florida Governor, Ron DeSantis, came right behind them and said they would look to pass similar legislation.

Seeing the writing on the wall, the NCAA proactively got in front of the inevitable train that was heading to wreck their HQ and lifted the ban.

This was the most ridiculous thing in the world. One of the most incompetent organizations in American history, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, has built the most arbitrary rules for student athletes in America in order to control the flow of money in the college system to the best of their abilities.

Here’s a quick list of just a few cases that borderline on immoral control over their athletes.

1. Pasta-gate – Oklahoma players were punished for recieving more pasta than they were allowed over an 18-month span.
2. Engagement Bliss – Kyle Guy, a star player for Virginia’s basketball team, was told to make his wedding registry private to avoid recieving improper gifts. He had to comply since he was about to play in the March Madness tournament.
3. Dunk Madness – The rule states players cannot dunk a ball in pre-game warmups 20 minutes prior to a game. North Florida did this and their opponent was awarded two free throws to start the game. North Florida lost by 2 points.
4. Downright Despicable – While finishing his senior year of high school, Perry Jones was basically homeless. The bank foreclosed on his family’s home due to the weight of his mother’s medical bills for her heart condition. They couldn’t make the mortgage payments anymore and got a super run-down cheap hotel room they paid for by the week. When the money ran low, they asked an old AAU ball coach for a loan of three monthly payments of $1,195 to keep them off the streets. Ms. Jones paid the loan back by the 15th of every month. The NCAA suspended him six games for this.

But one overriding factor for years has been when the NCAA clamped down on student athletes profiting off of their likeness (signatures, selling jersey’s, doing photoshoots, etc). One victim was the popular sports game, NCAA Football. Since they couldn’t legally use players likeness without paying them and since the athletes could not accept payment, they were forced to stop producing the extremely popular game.

But here’s the big question…

IN WHAT JOB OR INDUSTRY ARE YOU PERSONALLY BANNED FROM BEING PAID ON YOUR LIKENESS?

If I’m the greatest at what I do and someone asks for a photoshoot or an autograph or a signed shirt, what business can legally keep me from signing and charging $50 for it? As long as someone is willing to pay for it, that is a private transaction between me and them.

Now, I understand for celebrities and pro athletes, agencies do monitor and only allow certain numbers of signatures to keep the value up, but that’s different. They aren’t BANNED and these companies don’t own their likeness.

So why is it different for unpaid college students? Why the overreach?

I understand this is kind of meant to prevent a college booster paying $2000 for a signed jersey of a high school recruit in order to sway them to go to a particular university, but it doesn’t matter. If that’s what the market dictates for the recruits jersey, then that’s HIS OR HER business.

They have not signed an agreement with the NCAA yet, so to be banned is ridiculous. On top of that, this stuff happens anyway in the shadows, so its not even particularly effective.

Another ridiculous example is Donald De La Haye who was banned from playing collegiate football because HE HAD A YOUTUBE CHANNEL ABOUT KICKING. Let’s be serious. He had 90,000 followers so if he had 50,000 views per video, he’d be earning about $30 a video at current YouTube ad rates. And he was banned from his dream for not giving it up.

It’s like the NCAA has copied a lot out of China’s playbook and implemented a system that allows zero entreprenuership or personal freedoms. Not exactly something America stands for.

This is as good of a solution we can get with the problem of paying student-athletes. Colleges don’t want to pay individual athletes and most sport programs aren’t profitable anyway. So by allowing student athletes to make money, if they can, doing what they love then more power to them! Be entreprenurial and teach swim lessons if you are a world-class swimmer. Go do photoshoots for a magazine if you’re a star quarterback or linebacker. If someone wants a basketball player to come and do a public speaking engagement, then that’s great!

We should embrace this new world for student-athletes and I hope the upcoming generation figures out ways to make lots of money the NCAA never gets to touch.

Sorry to every athlete who came before this. Hope you’re making that cheese now!