NCAA president says Congress must act to preserve sports at colleges that can’t pay athletes
WASHINGTON — NCAA President Charlie Baker said Friday that congressional action was needed to protect what he described as the “95 percent” of athletes whose ability to play college sports would be jeopardized by a court ruling or regulatory decision that would prevent them as employees of their school.
Speaking to a small group of reporters near the NCAA offices in Washington, Baker was realistic yet hopeful about the prospect of Congress doing what it failed to do despite persistent pleas from his predecessor, Mark Emmert: the NCAA should be a grant limited antitrust relief that lets the country make rules that protect college sports without the constant threat of lawsuits.
His comments took on more urgency when a Tennessee judge ruled Friday that the NCAA could not stop schools from using name, image and likeness (NIL) fees to recruit athletes. Baker was informed of the ruling during his meeting with reporters and declined to comment. The NCAA later said in a statement that the ruling “will exacerbate an already chaotic collegiate environment.”
Baker proposed in December creating a new Division I level, which would allow the schools that make the most money from sports to pay their athletes. But he doesn’t want internal NCAA reforms or a court ruling to jeopardize the sport at the vast majority of its member schools. The NCAA is facing several lawsuits and unionization efforts at Dartmouth that could result in athletes being classified as employees
The employment model wouldn’t work at historically black colleges and universities, he said, or at Division II or III schools.
“You’re talking about 95 percent of colleges that are probably spending somewhere between … $40 million and $5 million on college sports, and they’re losing money,” Baker said. “They don’t have TV contracts and no one can look at their income statements or balance sheets and conclude there would be a way for them to make money.”
Baker, a former two-term Republican governor of Massachusetts whose term as NCAA president reaches the one-year mark on March 1, said he was encouraged by his conversations with members of Congress who agree with him that something must be done to protect and standardize human rights. NIL rights of players and ensuring that the NCAA can give athletes more opportunities to make money.
“I think ultimately we’re going to need Congress to do something,” Baker said. “Because people will draw a lot of conclusions from court decisions. And then new ones will come.”
He said he took a long-term view of Congress’ actions and did not count on passage of a bill in an election year when bipartisan priorities, including border security funding and Ukraine, have been at a standstill.
“I fully accept the fact that in the grand scheme of things that Congress is working on, this is probably not at the top of the pile,” Baker said.
Baker added that the antitrust relief he is seeking is much more limited than what the NCAA has asked for in the past.
The NCAA and Power Five conferences aren’t just counting on Baker’s powers of persuasion to achieve their goals on Capitol Hill. They spent a total of $2,970,000 on lobbyists in 2023, breaking their previous record by more than $700,000, according to lobbying data reviewed by The Associated Press.
The increase in spending was largely fueled by the Atlantic Coast Conference, which increased its lobbying budget by more than $600,000 and became the first conference to surpass $1 million in lobbying expenditures in a year. The Southeastern Conference increased its expenditures by more than $200,000. The ACC and SEC have more than made up for the Pac-12’s decline in spending, which imploded last year when all but two member schools announced their departures to other leagues.
Two senators who have worked with the NCAA took a dim view of the association’s prospects for getting help from Congress.
“The NCAA has a well-established history of backroom deliberations that result in unfair punishments for athletes, coaches and universities. Until the NCAA takes action, all get-out-of-jail-free cards are dead on arrival in Congress,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said in a statement to The Associated Press. “The NCAA has harmed its priorities in Congress by continuing its baseless accusations against schools like the University of Tennessee and imposing unfair penalties.”
Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., pointed to the NCAA’s spending on lawyers and lobbyists to protect what he sees as an unsustainable status quo.
“As the courts and states force them to treat athletes fairly, the NCAA is spending even more on expensive lobbyists in an effort to convince Congress that college sports are suddenly broken,” Murphy said in a statement to The Guardian. AP, which is urging the NCAA to “negotiate directly with athletes to come up with an entirely new model that gives them the pay and protections they have long deserved. Until the NCAA takes these basic steps, simply coming to Congress to bail them out is not a reasonable approach.”
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