Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., is introducing a bill permitting college athletes to make money from their name, image and likeness.
The bill, to be introduced on Thursday, would require the National Collegiate Athletic Association to make rule adjustments permitting the changes, USA Today reported.
The NCAA's Board of Governors had voted in October to allow student-athletes to benefit from the "use of their name, image and likeness.”
The board voted to ask each NCAA division to begin to draw up new rules no later than January 2021.
The change would become effective at the start of the 2021-2022 academic year, according to USA Today.
But Rubio’s bill would force the NCAA to make the changes no later than June 30, 2021, USA Today reported.
“The only people on campus that are prohibited from benefiting from their name, their image and their likeness are student-athletes,” Rubio said. "And that's just not a sustainable position … given the fact that many of these college athletic endeavors are now multi-billion-dollar industries that are generating a lot of revenue for corporate sponsors and for university programs.
“This is not an effort to harm college athletics. Frankly, it's an effort to save it from what I think is going to become completely unmanageable if it's not handled uniformly across the board.”
And The Hill noted Rubio’s bill comes after California, Colorado and Florida have introduced state laws to permit college athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness, but no federal standard now exists.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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