Booker, Murphy Urge Further Action by the NCAA in the Wake of Its Recommendations for College Athlete Compensation

Press Release

Today, in a letter addressed to the President of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Mark Emmert, Senators Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Chris Murphy (D-CT) urged the NCAA to take further action to ensure that college athletes are able to access the rights and opportunities they deserve.

Their letter comes in the wake of a recently released report from the NCAA's Board of Governors with recommendations to address changes regarding the ability of college athletes to derive compensation from the value of their name, image, and likeness (NIL).

"Today, we write to express our concern that this framework still does not come close to providing college athletes with the rights and opportunities they deserve. Further, as the NCAA looks to Congress for legislative support in modernizing its rules, we believe the broader needs of college athletes, particularly their health and academic opportunities, must also be at the center of this conversation about reforming the NCAA's current model," the senators wrote.

The senators continued: "The NCAA's framework for NIL and third-party endorsements represents both a step forward and a step back. Yes, the framework describes a goal of creating the opportunity for athletes to be paid for NIL rights, but it also says that these opportunities will be restricted by what the report calls "guardrails". Thus, it remains completely uncertain how the NCAA will determine an athlete's endorsement deal fits within its proposed guardrails and whether those guardrails will be so restrictive, the rules so byzantine, and the penalties so onerous, that students will in fact have no meaningful ability to receive compensation for NIL rights."

"We believe that the report's recommendations inadequately advance the interests of college athletes, and we further believe that any legal protections granted to NCAA members by Congress should be met with broader reforms that address the health and well-being of athletes," the senators concluded.

College athletes -- especially Black athletes, who are disproportionately represented in revenue-generating sports -- are a massive source of revenue for colleges and media companies, yet they aren't allowed to share in the enormous value they create. And these injustices perpetuate long after students' playing days are over in the form of student debt and a lifetime of injuries.

This issue is deeply personal for Booker, who was a high school All-American and Division I football player at Stanford University. Booker is a member of a bipartisan Senate working group to facilitate ongoing discussions about student athlete compensation and related issues. He has publicly called for allowing college athletes to be compensated for their "name, image, and likeness" rights and requiring colleges and universities to cover athletes' medical expenses for injuries sustained during college competition for at least 10 years after eligibility.

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