What eventually became the current state of NIL in college sports began with a California state law introduced and passed back in 2019. The commonwealth of Virginia has now taken the next step, some would say logical conclusion, of what college athletics will eventually become.
The state has passed a law that, beginning July 1, will allow all Virginia universities to directly pay their own athletes.
Virginia and Virginia Tech worked directly with lawmakers to craft the bill and get it over the goal line.
"If this law gets us closer to a federal or a national solution for college athletics then it will be more than worthwhile," Virginia athletic director Carla Williams told ESPN, who broke the story. "Until then, we have an obligation to ensure we maintain an elite athletics program at UVA."
The law makes it illegal within the state of Virginia for the NCAA to punish Virginia colleges and universities from compensating their athletes for use of their name, image and likeness. The law states that college athletes are not employees of their university and cannot be compensated for performance during competitions, but schools can pay athletes for their participation in marketing and/or work directly with collectives or other third parties to market their athletes.
The law runs in direct contradiction of NCAA policy, and it's an open question as to how the organization will enforce its rules within Virginia's borders, as well as how Virginia schools will operate moving forward. Liberty AD Ian McCaw said his school will still operate within NCAA guidelines.
However, the NCAA's legal team has taken more Ls in court recently than the 2008 Detroit Lions. Beginning with the Supreme Court's ruling in the 2021 NCAA v. Alston case, in which Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that "NCAA's business model would be flatly illegal in almost any other industry in America," the courts have been dismantling the NCAA rule book page by page. Most recently, a US District judge sided with seven states in ruling that the NCAA's ban on 2-time transfers violated federal antitrust law.
Considering NCAA president Charlie Baker himself proposed that the organization moves to a model that would see schools directly compensate their athletes, it would be a surprising move on multiple fronts if the NCAA attempts to stop Virginia schools from taking advantage of the new law.
The bigger question moving forward will be whether Title IX laws compel schools to provide the same "endorsement opportunities" for male and female athletes.
Either way, if the precedent for Stage 1 of the NIL Era in college sports holds, many more states will quickly move to follow the Old Dominion's lead.
As always, stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.