NCAA board approves athlete compensation for image, likeness
The United States’ largest governing body for college athletics took the first step Tuesday toward allowing amateur athletes to cash in on their fame, voting unanimously to permit them to “benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness.”
The NCAA and its member schools now must figure out how to allow athletes to profit while still maintaining rules regarding amateurism. The body’s Board of Governors, meeting at Emory University in Atlanta, directed each of the NCAA’s three divisions to create the necessary new rules immediately and have them in place no later than
January 2021.
The NCAA “must embrace change to provide the best possible experience for college athletes,” the board said in a news release. Board chair Michael V. Drake added that such change “must be consistent with the values of college sports and higher education and not turn student
athletes into employees of institutions.”
A group of NCAA administrators has been exploring since May the ways in which athletes could be allowed to receive compensation for the use of their names, images and likenesses. The working group, led by Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith and Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman, presented a status report Tuesday to the university presidents who make up the Board of Governors.
The shift came a month after California passed a law that would make it illegal for NCAA schools to prohibit college athletes from making money on endorsements, autograph signings and social media advertising, among other activities. California SB 206 goes into effect in 2023. More than a dozen states have followed with similar legislation, some of which could be on the books as soon as next year.