The NCAA could be trending in a positive direction when it comes to paying its collegiate athletes — well, sort of.
As it stands today, the NCAA is beginning to form a group that will be tasked with considering how the rules can be changed in order to allow college-level athletes to be compensated.
Such compensation would come into play for the use of an athlete's name, image and likeness. Hardly coming as any surprise whatsoever, the NCAA continues to make it abundantly clear that the aforementioned group won't even remotely consider anything that could be “construed as paying athletes.”
“This group will bring together diverse opinions from the membership — from presidents and commissioners to student-athletes — that will examine the NCAA's position on name, image and likeness benefits and potentially propose rule modifications tethered to education,” Big East Commissioner Val Ackerman recently said in an official statement, via ESPN.
“We believe the time is right for these discussions and look forward to a thorough assessment of the many complexities involved in this area.”
It is also worth noting that the NCAA-appointed group will need to turn in a final report to the board of governors in October.
“While the formation of this group is an important step to confirming what we believe as an association, the group's work will not result in paying students as employees,” Ohio State Athletic Director Gene Smith added, via ESPN. “That structure is contrary to the NCAA's educational mission and will not be a part of this discussion.”
Presumably leading to this discussion, the NCAA's amateurism rules have often been criticized and have even faced a variety of legal challenges over the course of the last several years.
It remains to be seen how things will move forward to compensating or rewarding athletes properly, but at least the NCAA is doing something about it.
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