For the last year, as state legislators across the country crafted bills similar to California's historic SB 206, the NCAA's working group on federal and state legislation had been preparing for this week, the moment when its recommendations on name, image and likeness would go in front of the Board of Governors.
In that time, with California and Colorado passing laws allowing college athletes to profit from the use of their NILs, the NCAA's eager critics have often wondered: What's taking so long?
From the perspective of college sports' governing body and its membership, blowing up a half-century's worth of legal precedent based on the ideals of amateurism was never going to be simple. The announcement Wednesday that the board would support athletes being able to profit from third-party endorsements, social media influencing and personal appearances was always going to come with "guardrails" that would serve as new regulations in the midst of loosening past restrictions.
To grasp why the working group's recommendations needed 31 pages of explanation, and why the NCAA's first big answer on NIL led to more complex questions, one has to consider just how much weight the association must put on every word that is thrust into the public eye in regard to this topic.
"The NCAA is waging battle on a number of fronts," said Gabe Feldman, director of the Tulane Sports Law Program. "They are not only trying to modernize their rules to allow more rights for college athletes, but at the same time they are dealing with antitrust litigation, state legislation and possibly federal legislation. They have the difficult task of threading the needle with all those external factors.
"Some of this is their own fault because they have delayed getting here, and their delay prompted much of the external action. Regardless of the timing, this is the reality the NCAA faces: In the middle of a pandemic, they are trying to figure out how to satisfy state legislators, federal judges, federal lawmakers and their constituencies. To me, this report was clearly written with all those factors in mind."
The NCAA won't know for months whether it succeeded in threading the needle with the strategy behind this announcement. And NCAA President Mark Emmert emphasized numerous times during a news conference that this is only a starting point for further discussions among leaders from all three divisions before actual rules are voted on in January 2021 and put into effect to start the 2021-22 academic year.
Once again, the NCAA has given itself more time. But that doesn't mean a fresh batch of questions can't be addressed now.
