South Lancaster News

The Pennsylvania Senate has passed a resolution urging the U.S. Congress and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) to establish uniform Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) policies across all states and universities. This move aims to enhance protection for student athletes involved in NIL deals.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Scott Martin, who authored the resolution, emphasized the need for collaboration between Congress and the NCAA to ensure that NIL policies are consistent, fair, transparent, and well-regulated nationwide.

NIL agreements allow student athletes to earn money through the rights to their name, image, and likeness. The NCAA previously prohibited such contracts until a 2021 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in NCAA v. Alston overturned these restrictions. Since then, regulation of NIL deals has been left to individual states or schools in states without specific NIL legislation.

Martin highlighted that this decentralized approach has resulted in a varied landscape of regulations lacking adequate protections for student athletes. "Whether it’s Congress or the NCAA," Martin stated, "if all the states aren’t playing by the same rules, we’ll continue to have to play whack-a-mole and react to whatever other states do to push the envelope on this issue, in order to maintain ‘recruiting competitiveness.’ That definitely isn’t an even playing field and is not good for the long-term health of college athletics across this country."

The resolution seeks national guidelines prioritizing young athletes' welfare.

Contact: Jason Thompson