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©Alex Sinatra 2025
Student-athletes shall be amateurs in an intercollegiate sport, and their participation should be motivated primarily by education and by the physical, mental, and social benefits to be derived.
A hobby or minor occupation as opposed to a vocation which is a person’s employment or main occupation, especially regarded as particularly worthy and requiring great dedication.
Limits the amount of time student-athletes are allowed to practice and participate in “countable” activities.
Many of the activities that aren’t countable take up huge blocks of time from the student-athlete’s schedule: traveling to and from competition sites, attending banquets, and fund-raising activities or public relations/promotional activities and community service projects.
For decades, the NCAA imposed rules on NCAA athletes that restricted them from receiving certain benefits from their athletic endeavors while playing for an NCAA school.
College athletes were also restricted from monetizing off their Name, Image, & Likeness and in many instances, restricted from being entrepreneurial and starting any sort of business.
By limiting education-related compensation that college athletes are permitted to receive from their schools, the NCAA is acting in violation Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which prohibits any “contract, combination, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce.”
SCOTUS unanimously upheld a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that struck down NCAA caps on student-athlete academic benefits (i.e. reimbursements and pay for academic-related expenses) on antitrust grounds.
March 2021
The NCAA always argued if athletes could monetize their likeness then they would not be amateurs anymore and it would ruin college athletics.
This was always a flimsy argument and when the NCAA lost in Alston, they knew they needed to change some rules. Antitrust rules now officially applied to the NCAA.
June 14, 2021, Texas passed a Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) law for their colleges and institutions. It became effective July 1, 2021
Updated law: Texas House Bill 2804, went into effect July 1, 2023
(https://www.huschblackwell.com/newsandinsights/texas-name-image-and-likeness-law-now-effective)
Athletes cannot promote:
Schools cannot:
The Contract cannot:
The Student athlete:
High School athletes: HB 1802
-HS athletes cannot monetize their NIL without losing NCAA eligibility, but HB 1802 would allow some UIL HS athletes to monetize if they are 18 or older
-Did not make it into law. (https://legiscan.com/TX/votes/HB1802/2023)
College athletes: HB 2804
-Allows employees of universities to identify or otherwise assist with opportunities for a currently-enrolled college athlete to earn compensation from a third party for the use of athlete’s NIL
-Effective July 1, 2023. (https://legiscan.com/TX/text/HB2804/2023)
Schools must provide:
The course must:
High School athletes are entering college early since they are prohibited from NIL deals until college in Texas
Female athletes are getting some of the biggest deals including UCONN's Paige Bueckers who was the first college athlete to sign a deal with Gatorade & UCLA soccer's Reilyn Turner is the first college athlete to sign with Nike. Flau'jae Johnson of LSU inked a deal with Puma.
WBB players are the third-most compensated athletes on Opendorse
Some athletes are donating all their earnings to charity
https://biz.opendorse.com/nil-insights/
NCAA's new buzz word is "pay-for-play" & they were investigating NIL deals at various schools for alleged violations prior to the TN v NCAA injunction
Schools are preparting for direct athlete compensation and salaries
Expect TX to allow HS athletes to monetize and to make the rules around college athletes monetizing less restrictive
A robust NIL education program can be a great recruiting tool for athletes and create more well-rounded people