Six months ago, the NCAA Board of Governors appointed a group to work out a rule that would allow student-athletes a chance to make money from their names and likenesses while they were still in school.

According to an ESPN report, that group addressed the NCAA on Tuesday and presented a plan that could change the current state of college sports for the better. Included in that plan were several major changes: (via ESPN)

• Allow student-athletes to make money by modeling apparel as long as that apparel doesn’t include school logos or other “school marks.”
• Allow athletes to make money from advertisements. Athletes would be allowed to identify themselves as college athletes in advertisements, but would not be allowed to reference the school they attend or include any school marks in the advertisement.
• Prohibit athletes from marketing products that conflict with NCAA legislation, such as gambling operations or banned substances. Individual schools would also be allowed to prohibit athletes from marketing products that do not line up with the school’s values.
• Allow athletes to hire an agent to help procure marketing opportunities, so long as that agent does not seek professional sports opportunities for the client during his or her college career.
• Require athletes to disclose the details of all endorsement contracts to their athletic department. The working group would recommend further discussion about whether a third party should be involved in overseeing these disclosures in a way that prevents endorsement deals from becoming improper recruiting enticements.

The proposals are a big step, but this process is far from over. NCAA members will now have a few months to review the recommendations and add input before a vote is taken by the board.

One thing you might have noticed about these policies is that none of them allow for schools to pay student-athletes directly. That process would be extremely costly and present serious Title-IX questions, but would help fix some of the serious issues presented with this solution.

The biggest issue the NCAA has to stop with this set of rules is how to control boosters. What steps can be taken to stop boosters from presenting over-valued “endorsement” deals to big name recruits in order to lure players to one school over another?

The NCAA seems hell-bent on finding ways to stop new laws like California’s “Fair Pay to Play” legislation, while still using “amateurism” to milk as much money from from the free labor as they can.

It will be interesting to see where things go from here, but this saga is far from over.

Source - NCAA group to propose possible changes to allow athlete endorsements
A working group studying the future of NCAA name, image and likeness rules plans to suggest during a Tuesday afternoon board meeting that college athletes be allowed to make money from a variety of endorsements, including advertisements and apparel contracts, according to a source familiar with the group's recommendations.

NCAA is poised to let athletes cash in. Sonny Vaccaro can't wait.
NCAA is moving ever closer toward allowing college athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness. Sonny Vaccaro helped open the floodgates.

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