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2021 NEW MEXICO LEGISLATURE

Lawmakers pass bill to break NCAA rules

Posted

It will now be up to Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to decide if college athletes in New Mexico will be required to abide by NCAA rules.

The New Mexico House of Representatives passed Senate Bill 94 on a 43-21 vote Sunday, March 14, sending it to the governor. If signed, it would allow college athletes in New Mexico to make paid commercial endorsements in violation of NCAA rules.

Student athletes could lose their eligibility if the NCAA were to enforce its rules, but sponsor Rep. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, assured his fellow members they won’t. He said California has already passed similar legislation, and other states are considering it.

“Once California did it, and once Florida does it, it’s game over for the NCAA and they will have to be more fair to their college athletes,” Maestas said.

California passed legislation in 2019 that prohibits the NCAA from taking action against a student athlete who is compensated for the use of their name, image or likeness. The new law is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2023.

Maestas said the bill was about basic fairness. College athletics has become a multi-billion-dollar industry, but an athlete can get kicked off the team for taking a free meal, he said. The days of romanticizing the virtues of the amateur athlete are over, he added.

“The world finally went pro in the early ‘90s with the Dream Team in ‘92,” Maestas said, referring to the start of professional athletes competing in the Olympics and the USA basketball team that included Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Bird. “The NCAA is kind of a last holdout on this notion of amateurism.”

Rep. Matthew McQueen, D-Santa Fe, said he feared the bill would exacerbate the problem by further tilting the imbalance between major sports like football and basketball and other sports with smaller fan bases.

“I don’t think your bill fixes a broken system. I think it makes it worse,” he said. “The vast majority of athletes don’t have commercial endorsement potential, especially here in New Mexico.”

He said the bill would make it easier for wealthy boosters to funnel money to a few star players, but most would be left out. The better solution, he said, would be for both the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University to drop out of the top division.

Maestas said the bill would help more than just the star players. Along with commercial endorsements, the bill would also prevent the NCAA from penalizing college athletes who receive food, shelter, medical expenses or insurance from a third party.

And, it would give athletes the freedom to wear whatever brand of shoes they wanted, as long as they are adequate for the sport. Maestas said under the current system coaches can sign lucrative contracts with footwear companies that require all of the players to wear the same shoe, even if the player may have moral objections to how the shoes are manufactured, or simply doesn’t like wearing them.

Rep. Linda Serrato, D-Santa Fe, said under NCAA rules an athlete can be punished for profiting off their likeness and image, even if it has nothing to do with sports. For example, somebody who has a popular online site devoted to music and is also on the swim team could run afoul of the rules.

Rep. Randall Pettigrew, R-Lovington, warned that New Mexico lawmakers shouldn’t think they have the same clout as those in California. Just because the NCAA hasn’t come after them, that doesn't mean they won’t come after athletes in New Mexico, he said.

The NCAA is in the process of revising its rules, and New Mexico should allow that process to play out, Pettigrew said.

“The NCAA says they’re changing, but I don’t believe them,” Maestas said. “It’s not in their interest to change. They have created the greatest exploitation of workers imaginable.”

In the fiscal impact report on the bill, officials at NMSU noted that the NCAA is lobbying Congress for federal legislation that would invalidate any state laws allowing student athletes to profit from their image.

The Associated Press reported in February 2020 that the NCAA and its allies had spent more than $750,000 in the previous year on lobbying efforts in Congress.

“We are committed to preserving the system of college athletics that exists nowhere else in the world,” Donald Remy, chief legal counsel for the NCAA, told the AP.

Walter Rubel can be reached at waltrubel@gmail.com.

Walt Rubel, Senate Bill 94, NCAA

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