Let's Get The Lawyers Out Of College Sports, And Give Players A Fair Deal | Jonathan Skrmetti
Sports enthusiasts around the globe celebrate college football every year. Along with fans welcoming our favorite teams back to the gridiron, student-athletes gear up in the beloved colors and traditions of their schools and provide extraordinary displays of human achievement and entertainment. And while football often gets top billing, we see dedicated students giving their all for their schools in a variety of demanding sports.
Along with many other Tennesseans, I’m thrilled that fall sports have kicked off. I’m excited to see nail-biting, down-to-the-wire finishes. I want fuel poured on the fire of red-hot rivalries. And I hope we see multiple Tennessee teams compete in the expanded football playoffs. There’s a lot to look forward to!
KNOXVILLE, TN - APRIL 13: Tennessee Volunteers mascot runs the Power T flag across the end zone after a touchdown during the Tennessee Volunteers Spring Game on April, 13, 2024 at Neyland Stadium in Knoxville, TN. (Photo by Bryan Lynn/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
While our student-athletes worked tirelessly through the off-season to prepare for the intense competition, my office has been doing our part to protect their rights. For far too long, the NCAA and its business partners made billions of dollars on the backs of these students while micromanaging every meal, ride, and article of clothing those students had.
It would be glorious if we were still living in the old days when a young man full of vigor and school spirit could round up some fellas from the dorm next door, slap on a leather helmet, and give what for to those rowdies from Tuscaloosa. But we are not. Television rights alone generate billions of dollars a year. Different sports are of course different, and some are significantly more lucrative than others, but as a whole, college sports is a sophisticated enterprise generating piles of money for all involved – except the student-athletes.
Those days of exploitation are coming to an end. The courts have recognized that student-athletes have an intellectual property right to their name, image, and likeness (NIL). When the NCAA threatened to enforce rules that deprived student-athletes of negotiating the market value of those rights, my office filed suit to protect those students’ rights. Together with Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, we won the first round.
RELATED: Tennessee, Virginia Win Injunction Against NCAA In Landmark NIL Case
Based on state laws that protect NIL rights and federal antitrust law that protects market competition, the Court blocked NCAA enforcement of its NIL rules. We have since been joined in that suit by the AGs from Florida, New York, and Washington, DC. Student-athletes in our states, and from our states, are now free to find the true market value of their NIL rights. Meanwhile, public records show the NCAA working toward settlement in class action lawsuits seeking to recover NIL money for prior student-athletes.
We are entering a new era in college sports. Every school, conference, and athletic association is working hard to adjust as the landscape continues to shift. When things settle down, and they will, we are going to have a very different new normal.
But people will still build their calendars around Saturday home games in the fall. Office productivity will still mysteriously drop during March Madness. Omaha will still be packed in June. Future Olympic champions will still dazzle us on the field, in the pool, and on the mat. Fans will still come out to cheer for their schools in field hockey, rowing, bowling, and every other sport. College athletics is not going anywhere.
Student-athletes have rights, and I will fight to protect them, but the goal is clear: fix the legal problems and get the lawyers out of college sports. We will remove the illegal collusion that deprives players of the benefit of a fair deal and then we will step aside and let them play. The powers-that-be dragged their feet on solving the problem, but now it’s out of their hands. Change is inevitable.
We will keep fighting as long as we need to, but the fight will end, and the sports will go on. The extraordinary skill and dedication of our student-athletes will continue to shine. We can all take pride, and joy, in the work that they do, in their victories and their hard-fought defeats, in their refusal to give up, in their love of the game. These student-athletes give us so much—we need to fiercely protect their rights to share in the prosperity they create.