U.S. Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) used to be a football coach, and he’s using that experience in Washington to try and pass a law regulating NIL. The senator wants to make it harder for student-athletes to hop around schools. But some people including reporters and Texas Tech football fans aren’t happy about that, since Tuberville once abruptly left the school to take the job coaching at Cincinnati.
Those folks are going to social media to share that frustrating memory.
https://t.co/b6aoJUfESe pic.twitter.com/YcXFTOhDCa
— lukezim (@lukezim) November 19, 2024
The backlash to Tuberville is coming because the Senator is questioning why student-athletes should be able to leave a NIL deal at one school to go and transfer to another program.
“But my thoughts are, you know, you sign a contract on NIL, I mean you can’t just up and break it,” Tuberville said, per AL.com.
That quote is getting criticized by reporters, who remember when the senator was a coach. Tuberville famously left his job at Texas Tech to go to Cincinnati.
“Senator/Coach, you broke your Texas Tech contract in the middle of a recruiting dinner to leave for Cincinnati,” reporter Stewart Mandel said on X, formerly Twitter.
Tuberville, along with outgoing U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (I-WV), have long tried to put more guardrails on the NIL and the transfer portal process in college sports. Nothing has come from those efforts, although there was proposed legislation in Washington that was drafted.
NIL is changing the landscape of NCAA Sports
NCAA athletes can now accept compensation for the use of their name, image and likeness. There are few guardrails on how much money can go to the athletes, because collectives are responsible for the transactions. Players can also transfer to schools that offer more attractive compensation packages. Schools don’t have much power over how NIL can be distributed, and that’s something that the NCAA wants to change.
The NCAA has proposed several changes to the current NIL structure, including allowing schools to directly enter into agreements with players. Under a proposed settlement in a court case, NIL payments will also go to former athletes, who played before the current regulations. It’s definitely a wild West in college sports today.
Tuberville is interested in enacting a federal law to put a stop to a lot of that, but it is unclear how much of an appetite exists in Washington toward regulating NCAA Sports. With President elect Trump heading to D.C. in a few months, there may be increased attention on the issue. It remains to be seen, as Trump has not spoken much about that issue on the campaign trail.
Time will tell what happens with NIL in the months and years ahead.
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