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NCAA Unlikely To Pass NIL Legislation

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 29: NCAA March Madness logo on the floor before the East Regional game of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament between the LSU Tigers and the Michigan State Spartans at Capital One Arena on March 29, 2019 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)

The NCAA council is unlikely to recommend passage of formal name, image, and likeness legislation this week at its upcoming meeting.

This comes just days after NCAA president Mark Emmert urged the membership to pass such legislation by July 1 as pressure mounts nationally with NIL laws in six individual states going into effect on that date.

It will be unlikely that the NCAA will have NIL legislation in time to regulate its schools in six weeks. Those states’ NIL laws will allow players to receive benefits by allowing them the ability to market themselves. The introduction of NIL rights is the biggest regulatory change in its 116-year history. Even if the organization is unable to pass NIL legislation, there will be some form of chaos on July 1.

The NCAA council is set to meet on Wednesday. Any recommendation by the group, which is responsible for day-to-day decision-making for Division I athletics must be approved by the NCAA Board of Governors. That board is next scheduled to meet in June.

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The NIL laws were passed in six states: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, New Mexico and Tennessee. Each of the laws in the states are similar to each other but are far more lenient than anything the NCAA is considering. To conduct business without enforcement chaos, the NCAA may have to issue a blanket waiver to cover athletes in those states who would ostensibly be violating existing NCAA by-laws.

The NCAA Division I Name, Image, and Likeness Legislative Solutions Group took no action during a Friday phone call. It could have recommended passage of NIL, but it’s only an advisory group.

“We can’t enact anything. All we can do is make recommendations to the council,” said solutions group co-chairman Bob Bowlsby, commissioner of the Big 12. “We haven’t recommended anything. We gave our recommendations back in January. None of that has been changed.”

On Thursday’s conference call, ACC commissioner Jim Phillips shared the viewpoint of not advancing NIL legislation. “I’m not optimistic we’re going to get something done by July 1, but that’s not going to be catastrophic,” he said. “We’ll be OK. We’ll figure out a temporary kind of bridge until we get national legislation.”