In August 2020, a group of senators introduced a plan for a “bill of rights” aimed at empowering and protecting college athletes. The lawmakers, led by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), proposed that college athletes should receive fair and equitable compensation as well as better educational opportunities. The bill of rights would also enforce health and safety standards, an issue that became particularly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The NCAA has failed generations of young men and women even when it comes to their most basic responsibility — keeping the athletes under their charge healthy and safe,” Booker, who was himself a college football player, said in a statement announcing the bill of rights. “The time has come for change. We have an opportunity to do now what should have been done decades ago — to step in and provide true justice and opportunity for college athletes across the country. Our college athletes bill of rights establishes a new framework for fairness, equity and safety in college athletics, and holds colleges accountable to these standards.”
Blumenthal also argued that college athletics has become “exploitive” and maintains a system of racial inequality given that many college athletes are black and people of color.
“The literal blood, sweat and tears of student athletes fuels a $14 billion industry, but until very recently, those students received little in return and were vulnerable to being tossed aside,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “Reforming this system is about basic justice: racial justice, economic justice and health care justice.”
Specifically, the lawmakers proposed that athletes should be able to participate in third-party endorsements and market their name, image and likeness (NIL) with minimal restrictions. The proposal would also give athletes lifetime scholarships to return to school at any time to finish a degree and offer comprehensive health insurance for sports-related injuries.
The “College Athletes Bill of Rights” is also backed by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Mazie Hirono (DHawaii), Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Chris Van Hollen (DMd.), Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris (D-Calif.). The group hopes to introduce it through formal legislation this year.
The National Collegiate Players Association (NCPA), a nonprofit advocacy group launched by football players at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the bill of rights was necessary given the lack of health and safety measures for college athletes.
“The push to restart college football during the COVID-19 pandemic without the enforcement of uniform best practice standards in pursuit of football dollars that the players themselves will never touch is just one more example of the exploitation college athletes endure under institutions of higher education,” NCPA founder Ramogi Huma told ESPN.
The National College Athletics Association (NCAA) bars student athletes from accepting payments based on NIL, but more than two dozen states have either passed or proposed laws that would make it illegal for colleges to enforce that rule. The NCAA has argued that those laws would lead to inequality among schools and divisions by giving players in certain states opportunities to make money. The association is seeking a uniform federal law that would limit NIL opportunities. Some lawmakers have said that passing a federal law would be contingent on the NCAA increasing benefits for athletes.
Some lawmakers disagree with a bill of rights for college athletes, arguing that Congress does not have the expertise to regulate college athletics. Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio), himself a former college football player, told ESPN that “Congress can handle the NIL issue, [but] if we open it up to every issue that exists in college sports, I don’t think we’ll make it better. I think we’d probably make it worse.”
Gonzalez introduced his own NIL bill, which would allow athletes to make money from certain deals and also create a new commission to recommend laws that would help college athletes. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) introduced a separate bill to allow college athletes to be compensated for third-party NIL deals in June 2020.
Booker and Blumenthal have said they expect to generate enough bipartisan support to pass formal legislation when it is introduced. Given the bipartisan attention to the issue and the number of states moving on their own college athlete compensation bills, it is likely that Congress could take up the issue in 2021.
For more background, see the June 2015 Congressional Digest issue on “Protecting Student-Athletes.”
