GET DAILY REPORT FREE
On the same day that news broke about President Donald Trump launching a commission focused on college sports, the Louisiana Legislature took a step toward creating a task force of its own to look at some of the same issues.
According to Wednesday’s Yahoo! Sports report by Ross Dellenger, who you may remember as a former LSU football beat writer for The Advocate, the presidential commission may be “the first step in what could be a months-long endeavor for solutions to the issues ailing the [college sports] ecosystem.”
While there has been no official announcement yet, Dellenger’s sources expect former Alabama coach and LSU-coach-turned-nemesis Nick Saban to lead the commission, along with Texas billionaire businessman Cody Campbell.
Also on Wednesday, the House Education Committee advanced House Resolution 15 by Rep. Rashid Young, which would create a task force to study “name, image and likeness” issues for college athletes in Louisiana.
Commonly known as “NIL,” name, image and likeness deals allow private businesses, and privately funded collectives associated with universities, to openly pay college athletes. Ostensibly, these are endorsement deals, though many observers see it as pay-to-play by another name.
State lawmakers in Louisiana and elsewhere began legalizing NIL about four years ago, forcing the National Collegiate Athletic Association to end its ban on athlete endorsements. You can read Louisiana’s statute here.
But the NCAA’s rules around NIL change often and are loosely enforced at best. States have been tweaking their own laws, in hopes of giving their schools a competitive edge.
As amended Wednesday, Young would chair an NIL commission that would hold its first meeting by Aug. 1, with a report due in January. The group would include another House member appointed by Speaker Phillip DeVillier, another by Attorney General Liz Murrill, six university athletic directors, three student-athletes, three members from the private sector, and higher ed Commissioner Kim Hunter Reed or her designee.
Among other issues, Young says he wants the commission to consider “transparency” in the NIL marketplace. While it won’t look at individual contracts, he wants to help athletes understand their true value.
“There are just a number of things that come with contracts that we’re not sure that they completely understand,” Young adds. “They don’t understand the tax implications.”
Young also notes that the college athletics world is awaiting approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, which would distribute $2.8 billion in back pay to former athletes and allow direct payments from schools to athletes. Potential roster limits, which could cost thousands of athletes their spots, are the current major sticking point.
“Jurisprudence may potentially change the way our schools have to treat athletes,” Young says. “And so we want to make sure that we are supporting our schools and the kids and getting ahead of it.”
He also wants to discuss how to support the NIL efforts of schools that don’t have big-budget athletics programs, like Grambling and McNeese.
Young also has filed House Bill 168, which would authorize a state tax deduction for NIL income of up to $12,500. Rep. Dixon McMakin’s HB166 has a similar aim, though without the cap.
McMakin notes that LSU’s Southeastern Conference competitors in Texas, Tennessee and Florida don’t have an income tax, and Georgia and Alabama have considered legislation to enact NIL tax breaks. He doesn’t want Louisiana’s schools to fall behind their peers in the NIL arms race.
But both bills currently are parked in Ways and Means, and their chances for final passage may be dim.
“I think there is interest in doing it,” McMakin says. “Unfortunately, right now in the state we’re in with our insurance crisis and other tax issues, that interest may not rise to the level of getting through the process this year.”
Perhaps that could be another topic for Young’s task force to take on.
Other instruments filed this session involving college athletics include:
—HB 639 by Rep. Neil Riser, would more than double the state tax on sports betting from 15% to 32.5%, dedicating 25% of the proceeds to a fund to support “athletic departments at public universities that are members of conferences that compete in NCAA Division One athletics at the Football Bowl Subdivision and Football Championship Subdivision levels in La. for the benefit of student athletes.”
—SB 200, by Sen. Jeremy Stine, would limit the amount of athletics scholarships that schools could offer to foreign citizens to 25% of the total. It would be known as the “Make American Athletics Great Again Act.”
—HCR 13 by Rep. John Illg, asks the SE to schedule football games at LSU after 6 p.m. during September for health and safety reasons related to the heat during day games. The measure does not mention other schools or conferences.
