While the biggest Final Four games will highlight athletic prowess on the basketball court this weekend, there’s no denying that the rising tide of players-turned-influencers signing brand deals and social media campaigns has helped to bring even more attention to the game from behind the scenes. .
But even as women’s basketball teams and beyond benefit from a recent surge in attention — sometimes eclipsing their male counterparts — it’s not entirely clear that compensation has been equitable across gender lines. sports.
That’s why Sen. Nancy Skinner (D-Oakland) authored legislation to increase transparency around the monetization of college athletes’ name, image, and likeness (NIL) – five years after her first bill of law in the country. enshrined the right to be paid for their play in California and prompted states across the country to follow suit.
In January, Skinner introduced SB 906 to “bring transparency to NIL agreements in California college sports and raise awareness of gender equity” in those agreements.
Rather than imposing a particular mechanism to ensure equal pay, the bill would require the third-party private companies that often manage a college’s NIL agreements – dubbed “collectives”, which fall outside the jurisdiction of a particular school or organization – disclose more. monetization information. This data would include total compensation, the value of goods and services provided to the student-athlete and their immediate family, the sports teams involved, and the gender of the players.
Postsecondary institutions would then strip any identifying information from that data and share it publicly, compiling full team totals for each sport each year, broken down by gender.
“We don’t know whether women are now getting a much smaller share of the pie, whether these collectives are primarily funding men, whether it’s disproportionate to female athletes, and whether it’s creating a very uneven playing field,” Skinner said. . “Will the information we get from my bill trigger Title IX or not? I don’t know, but until we have information, we won’t know.
This bill is an expansion of Skinner’s work in 2019, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 206, known as the Fair Pay to Play Act, which was the first time student-athletes had the right to receive financial compensation for their involvement in sport. . Additionally, these rights were extended to community college athletes following the enactment of SB 26 in 2021.
Similar laws later spread to other states, and NCAA officials allowed all of the organization’s athletes to take advantage of NIL contracts by July 2021.
Prior to this rule change, the only way college athletes were compensated for their play was through scholarships, which were distributed by individual schools and followed Title IX regulations to ensure gender equitable application.
At least 250 collectives – funded through contributions from alumni, promoters, businesses and fans – have been formed across the country. These organizations have already helped raise millions of dollars in sponsorships for several female athletes.
In NCAA women’s basketball, for example, Iowa star Caitlin Clark tops the list with a $3.2 million valuation from NIL deals with Gatorade, Nike, State Farm , Xfinity and Buick, according to an analysis by college sports site On3.
Meanwhile, LSU phenom Angel Reese, who recently announced her move to the WNBA next year, has amassed $1.8 million through NIL deals with companies like Beats by Dre, Goldman Sachs, Tampax and Reebok, while UConn’s Paige Bueckers earned $652,000 in NIL revenue from partners like Dunkin’, Nike, Bose and Gatorade.
For comparison, Sports World News reported that Bronny James, Lebron James’ son, was the highest-earning men’s college basketball player last season, with a net worth of at least $5 million, the Most of this revenue is tied to NIL gaming deals. for USC.
However, these emerging stars are the exception rather than the rule for most student-athletes.
Skinner said the rationale for her current bill is to provide policymakers with data to determine whether or not these ever-evolving “collectives” are harming other female athletes or women’s sports in general – the first step to ensuring that all student-athletes are on equal footing. field.
SB 906 is still working its way through the California Legislature, with the next hearing scheduled for April 16.
If the bill is ultimately signed into law and subsequently reveals Title IX violations or other inequities in coming years, more targeted laws could follow — an effort other lawmakers will need to continue after Skinner’s terms in 2024.
There is already evidence that salaries are not equal between male and female student-athletes.
In December, 32 female athletes playing for the University of Oregon’s club beach volleyball and rowing teams filed a Title IX lawsuit against the school. That complaint, which is still pending in federal court, alleges that the Ducks’ administration treats “its male college student-athletes shockingly better than its female college student-athletes,” adding that the school “deprives them of ‘equal treatment and benefits’. , equal athletic financial assistance, and equal opportunity to participate in violation of Title IX.
For example, the complaint alleges that although the Ducks football team has spacious locker rooms and leather seats, the school provided no facilities for its women’s varsity volleyball team, forcing them to play in a park public with abandoned toilets and non-existent spectators. stands.
In the 2021-22 school year, women made up more than 49% of Oregon’s student-athletes, but the school spent only 25% of its annual budget on athletics, figures show of the university’s Equity in Athletics Disclosure Act.
Skinner said this is exactly the type of data they hope SB 906 will help uncover money from NIL transactions.
“We’ve had star women’s basketball players for decades, but only recently have they received the level of attention they receive today,” Skinner said. “I think it’s because with the NIL they were able to promote themselves and external entities were able to promote them by offering them deals, which, of course, led to all of us lending more money to it. attention.”
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