What the NCAA is really doing with name, image and likeness: our ‘press release’
The NCAA on Tuesday announced a “process to enhance name, image and likeness opportunities” with a news release. We have taken the liberty of translating that release here.
In the Association’s continuing efforts to profit off college athletes, the suits who contribute little more than red tape voted unanimously to permit the athletes who generate enough interest to provide bloated salaries to redundant administrators the opportunity to realize basic legal rights regarding their own name, image and likeness in a manner consistent with the collegiate model.
The Board of Governors’ action is shamelessly late and self-serving and directs each of the NCAA’s divisions to immediately — and, in the NCAA, “immediately” is basically “6 to 18 months” — consider allowing simple fairness. As an additional safety net, we’re committing to absolutely nothing other than the creation of working groups, which is jargon for “kicking the can down the road.”
“We’ve shown an abject fear of change because, let’s be honest, that’s what fundamentally unnecessary people do to protect themselves,” said an NCAA suit who ladder-climbed his way to a life with multiple country club memberships and houses.
“But now that states have begun to usurp our pretend power by allowing athletes the privilege of (*checks notes*) using their own name, we understand we have to do something that looks like we care but still maintains our cut. Which is why we hope nobody notices the words ‘in a manner consistent with the collegiate model.’ Our lawyers came up with that and it’s worth the retainer alone. Seriously. Isn’t that great?”
Specifically, the board said modernization should occur within the following principles and guidelines:
- Assure athletes don’t get so much money that they’re driving Lambos because the veneer of poor college kids trying hard for their school is fundamental to our business model.
- Something-something-something-education, but don’t worry, we’ll maintain ways around that when we need to.
- Ensure rules appear transparent but allow us to retain more than our share.
- Make clear the distinction between collegiate and professional opportunities which, again, is lawyer-speak for Don’t Let The Kids Look Like They’re Rich.
- Make clear that compensation for athletic performance is impermissi ... lol ... the lawyers are getting cocky now.
- Reaffirm that we’ll continue to pretend that athletes are students first.
- Title IX shouldn’t be a problem, but we have to mention it anyway.
- We also have to say something about recruiting, and we’re glad we’re not doing this on video because who could keep a straight face and say that’s all on the up-and-up as it is?
The board’s action was based on California jumping the line with the Fair Pay to Play Act, which nudged the last of our stubborn leadership off their delusional and arrogant stance that we didn’t need to update the ways in which we take advantage of the talent of athletes and (most importantly) the pride and disposable income of graduates.
We’ve workshopped the daylights out of all this and think we’ve come up with a process that will allow us to find the bare minimum required to keep the money coming in. Some of us are looking to buy a bigger boat, you know.
Anyway, our group will set up a Slack channel or something so we at least have a digital record of some new ideas. But mostly we just need to make sure we get ahead of California because, hot dang, seeing the golden goose threatened is a heck of a motivator.
“One advantage we have is that we’re just one governing body, so we should be able to move faster than 50 states,” another NCAA suit said. “Our sincere hope is that media outlets and fans are crazy enough to trust that we’re looking out for athletes and not ourselves here, but, more than anything else, I can’t emphasize this enough: I really hope nobody notices the words ‘in a manner consistent with the collegiate model.’
“Because what’s consistent with the collegiate model is an unnecessary administrator not needing to wonder when his next tee time is.”
This story was originally published October 29, 2019 at 4:13 PM.