MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — This could have been so much easier, NCAA.
The organization on Wednesday moved forward with recommendations to its board of governors that should eventually lead to college athletes profiting off their name, image and likeness without losing eligibility.
With approval, athletes may get the go ahead as early as this January.
The NCAA’s recommendations could have been a slam dunk, but as usual, it dribbled the ball off its leg and went out of bounds.
Either open the door to these possibilities or don’t, that was the essential responsibility by the NCAA.
It unnecessarily went so much further.
Some of the recommendations were obvious, like prohibiting athletes from promoting alcohol or gambling.
Putting out some guidelines to keep athletes from promoting shoes/apparel not used by the athlete’s school, that makes sense.
The rest is just overkill and were decisions best left to each individual institution of higher learning.
For instance, doesn’t it make sense for each school to decide if it wants its brand tied to an athlete in an endorsement deal?
Not to the NCAA, which seems steadfast in its idea that a young man like WVU basketball player Oscar Tshiebwe can get compensated for promoting a local car dealership, just as long as he’s not wearing the old gold and blue while doing it.
That should be WVU’s choice to make, not the NCAA’s, but that is the idea that will likely be moving forward.
And before we go any further, this move by the NCAA will go well beyond endorsement deals that will ideally only come in to play for a small handful of elite athletes at certain schools.
Remember when Terrelle Pryor and some of his Ohio State football teammates were suspended for trading memorabilia for tattoos or when Johnny Manziel got a slap on the wrist for selling autographs?
That all becomes fair game (and rightfully so) under these new guidelines. Compliance departments around the country are thankful and this is the area where most athletes would benefit.
The NCAA should get credit here.
Where it may cross the line is in trying to legislate some sort of “fair-market value” guidelines for the athletes.
It may sound good to deter businesses or even a booster from simply forking over bags of cash to an athlete for showing up somewhere and shaking some hands for 20 minutes.
But, what exactly is the fair-market value for the star quarterback at Oklahoma or the latest 5-star hoops recruit at Kentucky as opposed to an offensive lineman at Bowling Green or a volleyball player at Florida State?
This is not the NCAA’s business.
This is the NCAA trying to keep some sort of definition of what an amateur is.
That definition is changing by the second, thanks mostly to public opinion that believes when a kid elevates his school into higher profit margins that the kid deserves a little more than a scholarship in return.
Da’Sean Butler helped lead WVU to the 2010 Final Four, and in return, the university got boat loads of national exposure.
In the fall of 2010 — four months after the Final Four — WVU’s freshman enrollment rose 7%, which of course meant a healthy rise in tuition revenue.
It can be argued that Butler and the Mountaineers’ run played a large part in that, yet Butler never had the opportunity to cash in on his popularity until after he had left school.
You can’t open this door and say, “OK, we’re going to allow college athletes to benefit from their likeness, but only to a certain degree.”
Either the NCAA has to realize that it can’t stand in the way of allowing athletes to seek as much legal compensation as possible or simply just don’t open this door at all.
And it certainly is in no position to determine an athlete’s worth, whether they are the star quarterback or a relief pitcher.
If the NCAA does go down this road, it needs to get out of the way and let its member schools do the leg work.
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