NCAA moves on paying athletes

Plan in place to allow third-party contracts

The NCAA said Wednesday it is moving forward with a plan to allow college athletes to earn money for endorsements and a host of other activities involving personal appearances and social media content.

It’s a big deal — “unprecedented,” Ohio State President and NCAA Board of Governors chairman Michael Drake said. But there are important details to be sorted out before NCAA membership votes on legislation in January.

“The challenge of evaluating this is we don’t know where they have landed yet,” said Gabe Feldman, director of the Tulane’s sports law program.

While athletes will be able to cash in on their names, images and likenesses, the money won’t come from the NCAA, schools or conferences.

The broad plan is to allow athletes to strike deals with third parties but require them to disclose those agreements. The NCAA and schools want to regulate for improprieties so payments aren’t actually recruiting inducements or pay-for-play schemes.

Guardrails is how college sports leaders are describing those regulations. The next phase is building those guardrails.

There will be no cap on what the athletes can earn, said Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith, who led the group that produced the recommendations approved by the Board of Governors.

That’s important because the NCAA is still fighting the appeal of an antitrust case in which the plaintiffs claimed the association and its member schools and conferences have been illegally capping compensation to athletes at