Ads roll on, money pours in, and SCORE Act waits

By Alan Wooten
The Center Square

Seven big games in the Southeastern Conference alone, hundreds of players, all headed toward the billions college football generates in the 21st century.

And with it on this fall Saturday in October, plenty of those “getting to be familiar” advertisements during the games not only in the SEC but several other leagues for federal legislation known as the SCORE Act. U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis introduced it in July, 10 days after enactment of a $2.8 billion antitrust settlement authorized by a federal judge for NCAA athletes.

Known as the House settlement for former Arizona State swimmer Grant House, it allows each NCAA school – there are 350 in Division I, and 1,100 in all three divisions – to pay athletes for use of their name, image and likeness.

The acronym is NIL, and it impacts 200,000 athletes on the Division I level, and about 500,000 throughout the NCAA.

Consensus of the SCORE Act being good for college athletics has long vanished. That’s the acronym for Student Compensation and Opportunity through Rights and Endorsements Act, known also as House Resolution 4312.

Clarity and stability in a federal alignment are mentioned by supporters; critics say athletes are harmed while institutions and conferences benefit. Among other things, the legislation says athletes won’t be employees of the institutions for which they play.

Cody Campbell, regents chairman at Texas Tech of the Big 12, has been most vocal and quickly called out the commercials when the season started. He said those spots didn’t speak for everyone. The legislation is a starting point, he said, but needs more work – which is an opposite position of league commissioners.

An analysis of 1,500 adults ages 18 and older across the country sampled July 7-11 by the Elon University Poll and the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics had 35% saying regulation of college sports is the domain of the NCAA. Another 25% said sport governing bodies would be best.

Most telling as payment to players through name, image and likeness deals began four years ago, 47% were unsure or neutral compared to 31% saying it’s positive and 21% saying it’s negative. Fans scramble to adjust each season as players at their favorite schools and alma maters use four years of eligibility in some cases at four institutions, often with high NIL bid most pivotal.

“The commissioners don’t really care what happens at the institutional level,” Campbell said during a panel discussion hosted by the Knight Commission. “All they care about is what happens to them. And I think that is fundamentally the problem.”

To wit, enough league membership shifts have happened this decade to take UCLA, Southern Cal and eight other schools out of the Pac-12 and render the league barely alive and without “power conference” status. Money, sustainability and or strength is constant chatter for every league and in particular the Big 12, ACC, Big Ten and SEC – with the latter two easily most powerful.

Michigan State basketball coach Tom Izzo, Georgia football coach Kirby Smart, Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian, Houston basketball coach Kelvin Sampson and former legendary Alabama football coach Nick Saban have expressed varying levels of disappointment, embarrassment, confusion, and concern for athletics and education in this new world.

And that’s just since Monday.

“There’s nothing educational about college basketball right now,” Sampson said at Big 12 media day this week. “It’s all transactional.”

Dwayne Allen, Super Bowl champion from Clemson, is player director for the NFL Players Association. At a press conference this week, he said, “None of us like or enjoy, really, where college athletics is right now. I believe we are in the growing pains of change, and we all want it to slow down or stop, but I don’t believe the SCORE Act is our solution.”

The SCORE Act’s latest movement is from Sept. 11 when it went onto the Union Calendar in the House, a place for bills involved in spending public funds. It also means it is a priority for House action.

For now, that means hurry up and wait.