KANSAS CITY, Mo. — We’re here to talk about the issue that a college administrator said this week is taking his most time and energy — “and it’s not even close,” he emphasized — but you deserve a warning.
This is a doozy.
It is part classic Kansas City border war, part political sausage-making, part economic rights, part old-school college ‘crootin’, and partly about something some lawmakers see as a hate bill.
At the moment, Mizzou and other schools in Missouri have a distinct advantage over Kansas, Kansas State and Wichita State. The NCAA could soon do the Kansas schools a solid, and when’s the last time we said something like that?
So, yeah. A doozy.
The issue is Name, Image and Likeness legislation. In Missouri, the bill cruised through both the house and senate and awaits final approval from the governor.
“It’s very helpful to me as a coach,” Mizzou men’s basketball coach Cuonzo Martin said.
“There’s going to be a lot of opportunity for us to take advantage of it in a positive way,” MU football coach Eli Drinkwitz said.
In Kansas, similar legislation is essentially frozen. The reasons why deserve a fuller explanation, which we’ll get to soon, but first let’s spell out exactly what this means at the moment:
A recruit can hear a coach from Mizzou talk about potential financial opportunities available from businesses based on their and their school’s popularity, and if they ask a coach from a university in Kansas about the same issue they’ll essentially see a human shrug emoji.
“If you’re recruiting a kid in Kansas City, if he picks Missouri over Kansas we’re dealing with apples and oranges,” KU men’s basketball coach Bill Self said. “It’s not going to be a level playing field.”
The issue is already embedded in recruiting. Self said he’s been asked about it by recruits, and that coaches need to be prepared. Fifteen states have passed NIL laws, with six set to take effect in July. Schools in those states are including potential NIL opportunities in their recruiting pitches.
There is a chance this could be a short-term issue. The NCAA announced its Division I Council is “expected to act” on NIL proposals next month. Mit Winter, an attorney at Kennyhertz Perry in Kansas City, has studied and worked in this space and said one possibility would be for the NCAA to enact a one-year waiver granting NIL rights while it works out the details of a permanent rule.
There is also the possibility that Congress could pass one of three NIL bills, including one proposed by Kansas senator Jerry Moran. Action by the NCAA or Congress would give all schools in all states the same rules.
“Right now it really is all about recruiting,” Winter said. “That’s why those states are passing laws so quickly.”
The story of how Kansas got to this point is interesting. NIL passed in the Kansas house by a vote of 95-29, but senate president Ty Masterson attached NIL to a bill that would ban transgender athletes from women’s sports. The combined bill is essentially stuck.
Masterson did not return voicemails and texts in recent days seeking clarification about why he attached the bills together, but he recently told the Topeka Capital-Journal: “The most notable female athletes, absent this kind of protection, could potentially (be) biologically male, and we don’t want to create more confusion or (incentivize) more discrimination against our young women.”
The reporting for this column included conversations with several stakeholders in Kansas college sports, none of whom said they understood what Masterson meant by that or why the trans ban should be attached to NIL.
“I have no idea,” K-State athletic director Gene Taylor said. “No. That didn’t make any sense to me at all.”
Winter knew of no other states that proceeded this way. He said that months after Florida passed NIL, it passed a trans ban and included a provision that NIL would be pushed back a year. The provision was rescinded after an uproar.
Winter also noted that when the Texas house considered an NIL bill already passed by the state senate, one member proposed an amendment banning trans college athletes from accepting NIL deals. That amendment was withdrawn, and the bill is still being considered.
So, Kansas stands alone here and its college sports teams could suffer.
Remember when college sports was obsessed with “full cost of attendance” payments?
“Those things are not even going to be mentioned again,” Self said. “It’s going to be all about Name, Imagine and Likeness, and, ‘What can I do, how I can I earn things with my popularity at a school that draws interest and has the support that yours does?’ And if you can’t get anything, then you’re going to be recruiting with one or two arms tied behind your back.”
This is one more area where speed is rewarded. As recently as last summer or fall, many schools were trying to hold the line against NIL. Their motivation was survival — some university administrators argued that non-revenue sports would have to be cut as sponsors directed money away from programs and toward individual athletes.
But once California passed NIL legislation last December, we could all see where this was going. As it turns out, the consensus expectation is that most NIL deals would be relatively small and often tied to social media posts. Martin even points out that it could motivate athletes to keep a sharper online presence.
NIL is happening, and it’s up to schools and states to keep up.
“This train has been out of the station,” Taylor said. “We knew we were going to lose this battle.”
Taylor was talking about NIL legislation being passed — he knew that battle was lost.
He didn’t know that once NIL was generally accepted Kansas would still be left behind.
The legislation itself has dozens of details yet to be worked out, whether NIL officially comes from the NCAA (best), Congress (OK but problematic) or individual states (woof). There are issues like ensuring NIL deals aren’t cover for paying recruits to choose a school, what constitutes market value, and what businesses are allowed.
Those are conversations that schools in Kansas don’t have the luxury of immersing themselves in. At the moment, they’re just trying to make sure they’re not left behind.
