Pritzker Signs Legislation Allowing College Athletes to Sign Endorsement Deals
Governor JB Pritzker and Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago), a former University of Illinois football player pose with legislation allowing college athletes to profit off of their name, image, and likeness. (Facebook)
Governor JB Pritzker has signed legislation allowing college athletes to profit from their name, image, and likeness, (NIL) changing the game in “amateur” college athletics.
The NIL legislation was sponsored Rep. Kam Buckner (D-Chicago), a former University of Illinois football player, and Sen. Napoleon Harris (D-Harvey), a former football player at Northwestern.
“We cannot continue to economically suppress these young people while they infuse tremendous amounts of money into our economies,” Buckner said at a bill signing event on the U-of-I campus in Champaign. ”This is not just a win for the star quarterback or the star point guard. This gives the women’s tennis player an opportunity to be compensated for teaching lessons back in her hometown during summer breaks.”
The bill allows students to sign endorsement deals, profit from social media channels, and host paid summer camps while keeping their college eligibility.
Buckner says there are safeguards in the law to protect student athletes from unscrupulous businesses or actors.
Students say they just want an opportunity to make a little money.
“We spend so many hours on our sport and so many hours in the classroom, but there is a lot more to us than the sport that you get to watch us play on television or the classes that we’re in all day,” said Eva Rubin, a women’s basketball player at Illinois who just finished her senior season. “Now with the NIL [bill] being passed, I can only imagine the opportunities I’ll be able to help create for myself and build for myself in ways that will help me give back to my community.”
Buckner said the NCAA has been mostly silent during negotiations on the legislation. But the path to paying players for their talents appears to be on the mind of many, including University of Illinois Athletic Director Josh Whitman.
“The evolution of the collegiate model will continue,” Whitman said. “We are continuing to watch the landscape, understand the way that it’s changing, literally under our feet almost by the day, and we will continue to innovate to be sure we stay one step ahead where I think we should be and where I think our student-athletes want us to be.”
The University of Illinois received around $55 million last year from television packages that promote the games athletes pay, but the players don’t receive a dime. That includes the over $750 million the NCAA makes each year selling the rights to the NCAA basketball tournament. Many advocates say its only a matter of time before the NCAA and conferences have to start sharing the pot, at least a little, with the athletes people are buying tickets to see and turning on their TV’s to cheer on.