A group of Senators has announced their plan to move forward with a proposal of the ‘College Athletes Bill of Rights.’ The bill will serve to provide college athletes within the NCAA athletes certain monetary, healthcare, and eligibility rights.
Among those leading the charge for the proposed reform to college sports is former NCAA athlete and current US senator, Cory Booker. Booker played football at Stanford University in the 90s and went on to begin his political career, serving as mayor of Newark from 2006-2013. He has represented New Jersey in the US Senate since 2013.
Booker shared his thoughts on the NCAA’s handling of college athletes in a tweet earlier today;
The NCAA has failed generations of young men & women even when it comes to their most basic responsibility—keeping athletes healthy & safe. Our college athletes bill of rights—legislation I'll formally unveil in the coming months—will change that. https://t.co/fdCBVKyetv
— Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBooker) August 13, 2020
Booker went on to say that “For them (referring to the NCAA) to get the cooperation from us, they’re going to have to change some of their practices.” “The NCAA feels urgency and needs to get federal cooperation. I’m going to make sure that we also are able to change NCAA practices that undermine the students’ education, well-being, and basic first amendment rights.”
The bill will call the NCAA to afford additional amounts of freedom to athletes that would be mandated by the recently legalized name-image-likeness (NIL) bill. In June 2020, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed that bill into law meaning that come July 1, 2021, student-athletes in the state will be allowed to get paid for business ventures such as social media, personal businesses, and personal appearances, provided they fall under a set of guiding principles established by the board. Florida was the third state to sign this bill, following California and Colorado, where it will take effect on January 1, 2023.
For its part, the commissioners of the ‘Power 5’ conferences have asked for legislation on the matter, in part to make sure that there are standardized rules nationally, and in part to shield them from lawsuits.
During the process to establish the new NIL laws, maybe prominent figures in the US politics and college athletics landscapes spoke out against the updates. Among those was Republican Senator from North Carolina Richard Burr who spoke out against the bill saying “If college athletes are going to make money off their likenesses while in school, their scholarships should be treated like income. I’ll be introducing legislation that subjects scholarships given to athletes who choose to “cash in” to income taxes.”
Echoing Burr’s dismay with the bill, NCAA president Mark Emmert was also very vocal about his opposition. Emmert suggested that the bill is “just a new form of professionalism and a different way of converting students into employees. (They may be) paid in a fashion different than a paycheck, but that doesn’t make them not paid.” Many NCAA conferences including the Pac-12 which is home to sports powerhouses Stanford, USC, and UC Berkeley, opposed the bill.
In the first few hours since its announcement, there hasn’t yet brrn much public opposition to the newly announced ‘College Athletes Bill of Rights’ by Senators of either party, though Democratic Senators have been more vocal in their support of the bill.
While specifics of the bill have yet to be officially announced, the bill has already gained traction and support from many prominent figures in US politics including Senator Bernie Sanders and the presumptive Democratic Vice Presidential nominee, Senator Kamala Harris.
Sanders joined Booker by sharing his support in the form of a tweet;
College athletes are workers. It is long past time they be treated like it. That means fair wages, safe working conditions, health care, owning their name and image, and collective bargaining rights. https://t.co/yV14d1XMKX
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) August 13, 2020
Mr Booker and Ms Harris are attempting to suck in votes from the college age folks who will find out (if they do not already realize it) that these Senators have no interest in anyone outside of their personal immediate financial and power gains. Still have faith that Americans will see the light and not fall prey to such trash.
Sad to see how he has caved once again to the establishment. Now he props up the people who have united to make him lose in the last undemocratic primary. And his tweet praising the pick for VP of Kamala Harris was too much for me. She’s a neolib. She’s fake, hypocritical, corrupt and the epitome of identity politics and political theatrics. He has no spine and by not fighting once again the system he’s supposed to fight he betrays a lot of people.
Steve, marry me
Yup, he’s mine so back off Piano 😉
Yeah, but what’s your take on the 11-12 yo up and comers? How’d that “bathtub,” “Troy and breastroke” will ruin Dressel work out? How bout how the American women should all be training like Cate Campbell take?
Ol longhorn never forgets
Memory like an elephant 🙂
Ah, the days of the futile campaign, but hey there’s always Joe. 😂
Haha, guy really knows how to trigger you with the Bernie comments 🙂
This should be interesting. Bernie and the crew encouraging student athletes to get paid and in return they will realize at a young age how much these gov’t backers will want in return to “distribute” as they deem necessary. Get ready to hand over 30%-50% depending on how much they make.
Better than nothing.
Oh yeah the current US system you live in is so great. A system where a very small corrupt oligarchy controls everything and enriches endlessly at the expense of dozens of millions of people who struggle to survive and where most of the US government is in the pocket of Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Oil, the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex and the Silicon Valley.
And by the way it’s not a problem at all to raise taxes if you have great things in return like in most of industrialized and civilized nations. Big pro-family policies (generous parental leave, great nursing system, free preschool by the age of 3….)/a civilized, humane and performing national and universal… Read more »
Wow….been waiting long to get that off your chest Bobo? Pretty sure the article was about the potential for a student athlete Bill of Rights not a grand defense of the American way of life. Please tell us the Utopia in which you live so that we too may enjoy such a fine lifestyle as you.
While I don’t fully agree with your politics Bobo, I fully agree that Americans need to wake up to reality.
Now let’s get some swim meets going so we can get some of your swimming insight as well!
Politics and amateur athletics don’t mix well ask many who missed 1980 or 1984 Olympics. Bigger Govt just means more spending and more deficits until we pass a balanced budget act. Feds don’t look at expenses only revenues unlike states and small businesses who can’t print $ to buy votes. Less military, less Welfare, more jobs here along with Congress term limits may make sense? It’s sad when 70-80 year old make most important decisions for generations behind them to deal with long after there cushy life in Beltway. Denmark may be a nice option but different population, small size and not same issues as US. Personal responsibility has eroded and poor choices by Govt on both sides on aisle… Read more »
Well, the last 3.5 years of “lesser government” did wonders for the deficit. Can’t really recall which party it was who last had a budget surplus. Oh wait, I remember.
Didn’t do much for the deficit and I wish someone would focus on it, but did do wonders for my portfolio. 🙂
Agree with most of this. I’d add CFB and to a lesser degree MBB aren’t amateur athletics anymore in the P5. They are both very far beyond the original intention of including athletics in the college experience (D3 is closer in my view tho I was a D1 CFB player long ago). I don’t know what the long term answer is, but it’s either a major transformation of the NCAA or something new. We have the 5 major conferences making different choices, where is the governing body…the NCAA? Feckless
TL:DR
Nailed it, Bobo.
Yes, no chance in California that I am going to be reading this word salad.
This is a swimming website. Take this garbage to reddit.
Sit this one out 200 sidestroke b cut.
You need to go back and worry about scraping up enough money to host the olympics in 2024. Maybe France can raise taxes since it’s OK because you’ll get something great in return. 🙂
Seriously though, it’s not a perfect system, but it’s one that seems to attract people from all over the world. If you like a system like France has, then stay in or move to France. It’s that’s simple, but I always find it interesting the amount of effort people put into to hating on the US like they need to convince us that their way of life is better.
I’m just impressed I was able to draw out the great Bobo for comment.
If he had stopped here:
a very small corrupt oligarchy controls everything and enriches endlessly at the expense of dozens of millions of people who struggle to survive and where most of the US government is in the pocket of Wall Street, Big Pharma, Big Oil, the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex and the Silicon Valley.
That part was right on. Bobo and I differ on the solutions but he absolutely nailed the problems. Of course, many of those same problems also exist in France, UK, and other countries.
The unintended consequences of all this stuff is the elimination of non-revenue sports. I hope it’s worth it.