New California College Sports Bill Would Actually Hurt Schools In The State

The bill (AB 609) was only introduced on February 12, 2021, and has not yet been heard in any committee.

Do the college athlete name, image, and likeness laws in California, Florida, Colorado, Nebraska, New Jersey, and Michigan go far enough? They are intended to provide all college athletes with the equal opportunity to exploit their publicity rights for commercial gain (with varying effective dates); however, they fail to go further than that, but for Florida’s requirement that athletes receive a certain amount of financial literacy and life-skills education prior to their first and third years of enrollment.

California Assembly Member Sydney Kamlager would answer in the negative. She has introduced a bill titled, “College Athlete Race and Gender Equity Act,” which intends to allow certain athletes to receive a royalty from their universities and also place a cap on the amount of money that athletics administrative personnel can be compensated.

To be clear, the bill (AB 609) was only introduced on February 12, 2021, and has not yet been heard in any committee. It may not ever be passed or signed into law, but the mere fact that it has been drafted and introduced is of note due to its potentially far-reaching consequences.

First, the bill specifies that if 50% of a school’s total sports revenue in California exceeds the total aggregate grant-in-aid athletics scholarship amount that is given to that school’s athletes during the reporting year, then the school will be required to pay the qualifying athletes with what is referred to as a name, image, and likeness royalty fee.

The calculation is expressed as follows:

The name, image, and likeness royalty fee amount for a college athlete shall be determined for each sport, and division or subdivision, by subtracting the total aggregate grant-in-aid athletic scholarships amount provided to the institution’s college athletes in a sport from 50 percent of the institution’s total sports revenue in the state, as reported to the United States Department of Education. That difference shall be divided by the total number of college athletes receiving a grant-in-aid athletic scholarship in that sport during the reporting year.

Second, the bill says that any school that receives state funds or tax-exempt status cannot compensate athletics administrative personnel in an amount above 50% of the average total compensation paid to such personnel by colleges in the Football Championship Subdivision of the NCAA.

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Third, there is a provision that would, as of January 1, 2022, prevent colleges that receive state funds or tax-exempt status from entering into agreements for new athletics facility expenditures unless they are deemed necessary for health and safety reasons, are beneficial to the environment, or are necessary to comply with Title IX of the federal Educational Amendments of 1972.

This may be the most radical college athlete rights-related bill proposed on the state or national level since California signed its Student Athlete Bill of Rights into law. It provides a foundation for the concern that some have about the more basic name, image, and likeness proposals evolving into much greater changes to the college sports landscape. It is also hard to comprehend the justification for preventing schools from improving upon their facilities, putting California athletic departments at a disadvantage as compared to competitors outside of the state, if athletes are separately being afforded enhanced rights. More likely than not, this bill will go nowhere.


Darren Heitner is the founder of Heitner Legal. He is the author of How to Play the Game: What Every Sports Attorney Needs to Know, published by the American Bar Association, and is an adjunct professor at the University of Florida Levin College of Law. You can reach him by email at heitner@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter at @DarrenHeitner.

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