The P5 football schools bring in approximately $7.1B in revenue each year. Doing the math this is around $900k in revenue per scholarship athlete. These kids are in no way "amateurs".

When I wrote the book, a photographer took the cover picture showing four players running past the ND logo at center court.

In order for me to be able to use the picture on the book cover, the players all had to be blurred out so as not to indicate who they were. Why? Because the NCAA prohibits player likenesses being used to sell or otherwise promote products.

he made for appearing in the movie Fast Break in order to maintain his eligibility as a walk on for the ND basketball team in '78-'82. Nice guy, was in my freshman seminar class. From the linked article, apparently did quite well for himself.
Any nominal payment has been verboten forever. Any changes will require the NCAA to be dragged kicking and screaming into the present and future.

• Click here for link at https://und.com/sports/2018/8/7/genrel-062804aaa-html.aspx

it would have been okay, correct?

I recall Steve Alford having a similar issue when he was a player at Indiana and he was trying to do a fundraiser for a worthy cause (allegedly, I know) and they made a calendar and he was "mr. May" or whatever and he almost lost his scholarship. He pointed out that other players did it for the school and the school sold them and made money but he couldn't do it for a charity.

and likeness cannot include the school without school's consent.

Can a school be required to let a player sign and sell a "replica" jersey? Sign and sell his own game-worn jersey?

Little details which could be worked out and should not stop progress.

I'm in favor of players (not just players, but all individuals) getting paid whatever someone is willing to pay them for goods and services which are legal.

This is just off the top of my head so feel free to poke holes in this. What's to prevent the following?

Notre Dame has an endorsement deal with Under Armour.
It stands to reason that Under Armour will want to endorse individual ND players too, and will have a vested interest in ND getting top high school players to commit to ND.
Let's say that Under Armour pays ND $10 million per year.
Now that student-athletes can collect endorsement deals, ND and Under Armour agree to reduce it to $8 million per year; Under Armour will then use that extra $2 million to negotiate endorsement deals with high school athletes, on the condition that they sign with ND.
If I'm not mistaken, this is kind of what happened in the recent college basketball scandal.

So in effect, the sports apparel companies will become recruiting agents for the schools, and the recruiting wars for the top recruits will become actual bidding wars.

Maybe that's fine? Just say "Screw it, let the free market prevail. Better to have it all out in the open." It certainly won't help parity, but we don't have parity right now anyway.

these apparel companies benefit by having lots of "partners" (Jack Swarbrick term).

It would be in their best interests to have lots of good players at lots of good schools and then they would have relationships with everyone and their players. If they only support a few schools, they run the risk of losing profit on the remaining.

being able to profit on their likeness? I mean at ND we are pretty darn high profile nationally. Of the 22 starters how many do you think would make any money off their image? Ian Book? Dexter Williams? Anybody on Defense? Maybe Dru Tranquil?

Also how are their images being used now that the university is profiting off of and not the player? You can't count doing interviews nobody even NFL players get paid for doing pre-game, post-game, or any interviews during the season.

Even without the loopholes

that boosters are going to use a "Likeness" loophole to pay players to use their image, and thus legalize booster payments to players.

While I agree that that is a likely result, I don't agree that that concern is sufficient to prohibit players from profiting from their likeness.

I believe Swarbrick has proposed that any moneys received from likeness payments would be placed in a trust that could only be accessed by forfeiting amateur eligibility. That might be how things start, but such an arrangement won't actually prohibit players from accessing benefits while in school. The trust would be a financial tool that any financial institution could take into account when issuing a loan to the player. What will inevitably happen is players will access cash on the basis of their trust assets (and the NCAA really can't do anything about that), and the position will be "Why are we letting banks profit off of these players instead of just letting them access their own money?" And then poof, away go the trusts.

boosters to use the rule to funnel money legally to high profile players and recruits. Once that's out of the bag, then I have no doubt parents of HS players will be demanding to have things set up for them to make money on their images. It'll be another part of recruiting. I don't know how that will be handled as boosters aren't allowed as part of the recruiting process, but you can bet top rated players aren't signing anywhere without guarantees of money for their image.

“Hey kid, my car dealership is prepared to buy $100k worth of jerseys with your name on the back as long as it says ‘Ohio State’ on the front...”

pay millions of dollars to every single recruit, regardless if the kid actually pans out or not.

We've gone from the bag man to the boogey man. The Nike/Oregon concern is valid but even then Nike isn't in the business of just wasting money on kids that may not pan out.

Realistically speaking the best thing that would come of it would be less money to guys like Gene Smith and more money to the kids.

... a feature not a bug? John Townie plays Blue Chip Bill to "endorse" his car dealership with insinuations of more to come, so Bill signs with School X. Bill doesn't live up to the hype and Joe Townie moves on. At least when the player makes his decision at least partially based on the school, and most schools honor a 4-year commitment to the athlete, the athlete isn't completely SOL.

A guy who never performed gets an endorsement deal on top of his scholarship.

Who, exactly, is hurt by this arrangement? Is Blue Chip Bill worse off because John Townie paid him some money when he was 18?

if someone was willing to pay you to endorse their car dealership you wouldn't have a problem with it.

If people want to waste their money, they're going to waste their money. I tend to think that these boogey men that you and others create are unlikely to be a very big deal or big in scale, but it sure makes people comfortable with the status quo. Just like baseball owners in the late 60s and early 70s, I might add.

Before:
A few rogue boosters paying athletes under the table, putting the programs at risk for violations.

After:
Now that it's all on the up-and-up, all boosters can chip in. NDN posters can start a GoFundMe account for the fullback recruit to come to ND and we'll put his picture on the website to legitimize it.

Or more significantly, Under Armour and ND mutually decide to re-allocate where the money goes in their major contract so that they're endorsing both the team and its individual players. UA wouldn't be just wasting money on kids, they would be spending the same amount of money as before but just allocated in the way that ND asks them to for the benefit of recruiting.

Another example might be someone like Chris Finke gets no endorsement money when he signs as a preferred walk on and maybe a very small amount in his 4th year. But prior to his 5th year, UA gets into a bidding war with Nike and Adidas who are trying to steer him to one of their schools.

Yet another example might be Ian Book not getting very much endorsement money when he was expected to spend his career behind Wimbush and Jurkovec. After coming off the bench and leading them to the CFP in 2018, Book demands to "renegotiate his endorsement deal" or else he'll transfer.

Again, maybe that's all fine to let the free market decide these things. Curious to see if people think these types of hypotheticals are realistic outcomes or outlandish.

on players that might not even play.

There is almost an endless supply of guys that won't even donate $50 to rid themselves of ads on the website ready to sign up for a go fund me account!

My reference to a fullback was a joke. We all know that fullbacks don't play at ND.

I could definitely see SEC fans zealously setting up GoFundMe accounts or doing other similar things for current players and/or recruits if it became legal to do so.

that's life in the big city.

My guess is that will end up not being a big deal.

At first people will be taken aback at celebrity college athletes living celebrity lifestyles. "Why does the Quarterback make more than his English teacher?" "Back when I went to school, the athletes were part of the student body." But if them's the rules then people will get over it and eventually it'll just become the way it's always been, for better or worse. And I'm not really sure that it's worse.

I think you're underestimating what ND fans will help pay for. Maybe not with recruits, but for existing student-athletes. I think there would be tremendous support for things like "Help Dexter's dying mother relocate to South Bend." "Help Nix's mom travel to his games." "Help Manti fly to LA for Lennay's funeral."

will be what really sways the majority of kids.

That's what it should be now, anyway, but with all the bullshit under the table crap it can get confusing. If someone really wants to make some money and market themselves and can do it above the table than the value of the institution might become the tipping point.

a school's apparel provider hiring players for endorsements placed into a school's contract with the provider could still be prohibited.

Frankly, the better solution to prevent the problems you're discussing would be to prohibit requirements that the athletes wear specific apparel other than that needed for purposes of team identification (e.g., shoes would be up to the player).

Players could then freely negotiate with companies for those items, regardless of the contract the providers have with the schools. This would be a good thing, as it would properly split the value that the school's brand is providing the apparel company versus the value the individual player is providing.

80K, so I think there are more than a few of those guys out there. I'm not saying millions of dollars but I'll bet Trevor Lawrence or Justin Fields could have gotten at least what Cam got from Clemson or Georgia Boosters.

a few kids would undoubtedly profit.

the vast majority would not. There are a lot more Bryce Givins than there are Cam Newton's.

If the top 5%-10% are able to make a decent amount of money off of the deal, more power to them.

Cam Newton, future NFL rookie of the year, NFL MVP, three time pro-bowler, and QB who elevated Auburn to a national title, was thought by his own father to be worth between $100K-$180K after already having played some D1 football. No evidence was ever found that any school or booster agreed to that sum.

The idea that there's millions of dollars out there for your random players is silly. Your local car dealer boosters aren't going to have the kind of cash necessary to have the kind of corruption people are afraid of, and the big companies like Nike aren't emotionally invested enough/financially stupid enough to shower game-changing amounts of money on unproven players.

But such promises would be unenforceable. And coordination or involvement of boosters in the recruitment process would still be banned.

Boosters aren't going to go handing out hundreds of thousands of dollars willy-nilly. For a few select top recruits? Maybe. For 20 guys each year? No way. They'll want to see and reward performance.

and that should be the point.

If many/most will not profit, their really only benefit in the arrangement is in the education that they receive from the schools.

The kids should make money off of video games and similar items.

or any other ND player? I have a Jersey at home with the #3 on it and no name who is owed money for that, every player who has worn #3 or only the guy who is wearing it when I bought it?

Making it explicitly legal establishes the foundation for a video game publishers to directly license this information from players, using their likeness, names, etc.

and pay the players.

It is the NCAA cartel that refuses to allow the game to go forward as they won't sign off on the licensing agreements.

The pro sports license likeness through their player associations, not through the league.

Do NCAA bylaws currently provide authority for it to use player likeness, which players consent to in order to participate? Or do the bylaws just prohibit players from exploiting these rights as a condition for participation? If the former, that presumably would also be among what is challenged.

I don't get the impression that the NCAA itself or member institutions are directly hoarding rights and exploiting them to EA. They just prohibit players from dealing with EA and other entities. So EA formerly acted pursuant to that understanding that no licensing of likeness rights was required.

So EA would be on the hook for past violations unless the statute of limitations ran out on the last time they exploited those rights.

Of course, if EA pays licensing rights to the institutions, when you add players to the mix, those institutions would likely need to take a pay cut from what EA deems is the total licensing fee expenses permitted by the market for EA to make a profit.

Assuming some body is formed with the consent of players that is permitted by antitrust and collective bargaining law and that deals on behalf of the players.

I don't think there's such a thing as "past violations". My understanding is the NCAA barred athletes from exploiting their rights as a condition for participation, to fit under the banner of student-athletes and amateurism, etc.

The NCAA was essentially collectively bargaining for the rights to all the universities' brands, fight songs, etc. in the context of college football. As games got more sophisticated, EA added jersey numbers and a rough likeness of players. Additionally, they pre-recorded names of different players, such that if the user chose to rename #10 at Notre Dame to "Quinn", the announcers would say "Quinn" instead of "the quarterback". It all got very dubious where the line of likeness was and how much EA vs the NCAA was profiting off their likeness.

Granted, players and fans both loved it, but it became increasingly untenable for EA to claim that they weren't profiting off their likeness outside the rights the NCAA had licensed them. They decided the liability outweighed the value of sales and canceled the contract with the NCAA. They just want certainty in who they're dealing with and that all stakeholders' rights are established and legal before continuing development. The NFL and NFLPA make all this so much easier.

back in the early 2000s and they had Dorsey playing for the U in the video game. He didn't get any $ from it, even though they used his #12 & likeness.

Well, not Ian Book, but basically every DI player. It went beyond just having a roster of players with the same numbers at the right position as the real team did. Each player also had appearance, ability, and background characteristics that were designed to be the real player.

player in division 1 FB and basketball player only a few hundred dollars.

how is it being used now to profit anybody?

It is a season college basketball schedule. Pictured is the basketball team, their schedule and a big logo of an allergy and asthma center. That is a promotion using players image.

When an upcoming game is shown as a commercial to gain interest, big plays made in a previous game by a player may be shown. "Come watch XYZ player and the take on the " That is a promotion using a player. The network is making money by using his or her name. A non-official sponsor can not say "Super Bowl" they all say big game in their advertising. I see players likeness as the same thing.

ND and other schools would just do what ND and Under Armour do and show a generic ND player wearing the number of the current year, as in 19 this year.

And jerseys at the bookstore don't have names on the backs so they are generic ND football jerseys, just some years certain numbers are produced more and sell better than others.

As for a different post about video games, again, unless it's cheap/cost effective, nobody is gonna bother doing the NCAA game, and they'll just stick with the NFL. (By the way, I've never understood why they don't do a generic NCAA game and let players set up their own team...choose their own roster numbers on the field, etc. For your favorite team you could take 15 minutes to basically have your current team set up and on the field, while the software was "shipped" with no likenesses whatsoever).

individual player, nobody is going to bother paying?

I tend to agree. There has to be a market there. The schools should be able to get some offset on using image/likeness because they would be "paying" the player via scholarship.

Everyone was already doing customized rosters anyway, which are easily shared online.

EA could just create the game with entirely random rosters, but authentic schools, stadiums, etc... and then rely on the player community to customize the game.

say player names. They almost always refer to the coach's name. Clips from games are shown, but player names are not mentioned.

Is this the type of thing that you are talking about should be compensated? it's a photo from the current front page of und.com promoting the MBB game vs Miami on Wed.

There are 4 players visible, should all 4 players be compensated and how would anybody determine that value?

in the form of a scholarship.

If some other vendor wanted to use the image and likeness, then yes, all the players should be compensated.

the odds are nobody is going to pay and therefore the players' compensation would be very-low-to-zero.

Look at TV ads now that incorporate football...unless the advertiser is basically an official NFL sponsor, any flash of football on the screen is bogus footage of actors OR old USFL footage, which can be had on the very-cheap.

Since the universe doesn't currently care about the two ND basketball players in this photo, nobody is going to pay them or the University to use it. They'll find basically clip art/stock photography that is cheap.

and education, the way it should be now.

Notre Dame would stand out--most kids would realize that even very good players aren't going to make a lot of money aside from the very top guys and so the focus would return to their ability to A) get a great education and/or B) go to the NFL

I do think that is the crux of what would need to be established. Should Hubb (since he is the really the focus of the photo) be compensated? How much? Based upon what information? View of the page that day? Game attendance? Television advertising for that game? Just a blanket fee for all players to allow for such usage?

that baseball owners found themselves in the late 1960's/early 1970's with the reserve clause, limiting salaries, etc.

The ncaa doesnt punish or ban kids from getting paid. Technically. If a kid wants to get paid they can. But then then are ineligible to play in the ncaa. And teams that play ineligible players are punished.

But if she wants to continue to push the conversation, then mission accomplished.

the NCAA is a private institution so in theory they could still ban the kids but the idea is that she is trying to put pressure on them.

Personally I think that finding a solution to the issue is something that Notre Dame should be leading the way on; image and likeness seems pretty reasonable to me and they could even pattern something after the way the Olympic athletes do it.

... on this, not an individual school. I am all for compensating the players for the use of their image. But, there has to be some type of collective bargaining and equitable sharing of the proceeds. Otherwise you'll see, purely by coincidence I'm sure, every 5-star athlete that signs with Oregon receiving a Nike endorsement deal.

Any system that allows deals directly with individual players, or individual schools that distribute the payments to the players, will be abused. And the things that keep some level of parity in the NFL (the draft, salary caps) can't be easily applied to schools. Oregon and Maryland immediately become the top recruiters in the country.

Maybe the union can provide for a tiered system that rewards performance. That could actually lead to parity -- it could be an enticement for players to be the freshman starter at a small school instead of the two-year back-up at a powerhouse.

I don't think there are any easy answers here.

I guess I struggle with the concept of limiting what a player can get based off of his own image/likeness.

Nobody is limiting what the University of Oregon can make off of their deal with Nike, as an example.

NIke would be paying them to attend the University of Oregon under the fiction of their likeness. That’s the abuse. Such a system would provide cover for boosters to pay for attendance at particular universities. It is functionally equivalent to providing some nfl teams with salary cap exemptions.

If Nike wants to hire Notre Dame nation posters to come post on a NIke based site should we stop them because it's a waste of money?

If Nike wants to pay people/schools money, that's their business. I'm sure other schools could terminate their relationship with Nike and Nike would be free to go into a one school agreement and only work with Oregon. I suspect that Nike wouldn't be in a big hurry to lose all those other relationships, but who knows? Maybe Oregon is just worth that much to them.

Maybe Nike shareholders would be totally fine with that arrangement; I mean, when a publicly traded company spends a lot of money on players that might not pan out, that would effect their earnings in the short term at least. Maybe in order to offset that, Phil Knight can come up with the billions and billions required to buy back all of that stock and take the company private again, all for the sole (pun not intended) purpose of making sure Oregon won more football games.

When does the boogey man scenario cease making practical sense?

... of a level playing field. I'm not worried about a company's shareholders.

The NFL attempts to provide a level playing field through drafts and salary caps. Direct payments to players for their "likeness" eliminates any NCAA limitation analogous to a salary cap. The schools with the richest alumni win. You can't institute a draft in the NCAA because you can't have schools picking where athletes go to school.

Are places like LA and New York more attractive to professional athletes because of the greater exposure and possibility of endorsements? Sure, but the salary cap limits the effect of that, as do the high NFL salaries.

I have no problem with a developmental league or minor league system where players are paid and can receive endorsements. But none of those leagues provide players with an unfettered right to contract and all of those leagues have systems that ensure a level playing field. I also have no problem with players receiving payments from schools (including some type of collective endorsement deal), so long as such a system is is equally applied to all schools. Let the athletes pick which limitations they would prefer -- endorsements while being told, at least initially, where they must play, or no endorsements (or sharing endorsements) while giving them freedom to pick their school.

I'm definitely not saying the NCAA is perfect. I am all for paying players and giving players more freedom of mobility. Unfettered endorsement deals would cause more problems than solutions, including endorsement equivalents to coaches pulling scholarships.

it's not a level playing field anyway. If people are going to waste their money on signing kids to endorsement deals, then that's just the way the world will work. You've got schools offering 300-400 kids, oversigning, non-committable offers, and all this other bullshit going on out there in recruiting and you think that adding a booster into the mix that is going to pay a kid $100 to sign an autograph is a problem? Hey, you think that they're going to offer every single one of those 400 kids with an offer that same $100?

I tend to doubt it would happen in large scale, but hey, let's keep on with the current corrupt system and see where it leads us.

the question is where does the money come from to pay these athletes? Is it paid by SONY or MICROSOFT? Or do the schools pay? This leads into the further discussion of whether student-athletes should be paid for their play? All sports? Revenue sports only? Not all schools have a profitable operating budget in their athletic departments to pay student athletes. The Notre Dames/Texas/Alabamas (big boy schools) certainly have money, but Akron, Miami(Ohio), UT San Antonio...not so much $$

when Nike has an athlete endorse their product, Nike pays the athlete directly.

The Olympic model would likely be the guiding example. In theory, this should absolve the schools from having to pay the athletes and the "compensation" that the school provides will be in the form of education/classes/room/board/etc.

... a corporate-sponsored minor league.

The Olympic model works for Olympic athletes because they are essentially individual competitors. There's no team score at professional track meets.

spectrum will things land. The overwhelming majority of players would not benefit from being able to make money off of their image. Those players should be unionizing and fighting for more rights, like guaranteed scholarships through graduation, some form of ongoing medical care for football-related injuries, etc.

At least from the post's in this thread it seems (I have not read the article).

I believe players are contractually obligated to license their name and image to a common entity (e.g. NFL Players Inc.), and then that common entity licenses the rights to Nike, Under Armour, etc. For non-merchandise, obviously the players can go out on their own. The NBA, with shoe contracts and what not, is probably different than the NFL.

Barry Bonds and Michael Jordan, for example, cut their own deals (big reason why Jordan wasn't on some popular games like NBA Jam and Bonds wasn't in Triple Play Baseball among others).

My general understanding is that on any given item that uses a specific player's image, that specific player gets a cut, but a cut also goes to the general pool for all players. Again, I'm not positive, but in the NFL, I think all teams split merchandising money (the licensing portion) equally regardless of how much an individual team sells. Generally speaking, the NFL is much more communist than other leagues. The NBA, NHL, and particularly MLB tend to be a bit more eat what you kill.

My original response was just that the partner using the likeness is paying for the privilege.