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MADISON – As the Wisconsin Badgers adjust to the changing landscape of college athletics, they could receive some much-desired help from state lawmakers.
A bill proposed in the Wisconsin legislature – and up for a floor vote in the Assembly on Feb. 19 – would formalize rules around name, image and likeness opportunities for college athletes in the state while providing taxpayer funding for athletic facility maintenance.
UW-Madison, the one power-conference athletic department in the University of Wisconsin System, would receive $14.6 million of taxpayer money annually for debt service for maintaining its athletic facilities. UW-Milwaukee would receive $200,000 for debt service and maintenance for the Klotsche Center, and UW-Green Bay would receive $200,000 for debt service for its athletic facilities.
The proposed funds would come as the Badgers try to remain competitive in the era of direct revenue-sharing with athletes, which is capped at $20.5 million across all sports. Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh said in a public hearing that he has heard anecdotally that UW’s peers are spending $10 million to $20 million “on top of that to have a successful football program.”
The NIL components of the proposed bill would officially codify athletes’ existing ability to profit off their NIL and obtain an agent for NIL purposes – aspects of NIL that the NCAA has allowed nationally since 2021. The bill requires disclosures of NIL deals, which already is required by the College Sports Commission for anything at or above $600.
The bill also proposes NIL stipulations that do not allow athletes to enter deals that conflict with the university’s agreements or involve the athlete’s performance. Athletes also would not be allowed to endorse tobacco, alcohol, gambling, banned or illegal substances or illegal activity.
More: How Wisconsin’s new Under Armour contract can be big piece of NIL puzzle
Language also exists to clarify that athletes are “not an employee of the system” because of their compensation. An amendment to the bill filed on Feb. 16 includes language to clarify the “employment status of certain student athletes” at private universities as well, which would notably include Marquette.
In the same bill as the proposed use of public funds, there also would be an official exemption to the state’s public record law for athletes’ NIL deals and revenue allocations or deployments “when competitive reasons require confidentiality.”
There already is a lack of transparency on exact NIL and revenue-sharing numbers across the country, with universities often denying open records requests due to either federal student privacy laws or exemptions for trade secrets.
“We seek only to codify our existing practice of denying access to student-athlete NIL agreements and certain university records related to NIL strategy, allocation, revenue generation and use,” said Nancy Lynch, UW’s vice chancellor for legal affairs, “the release of which would put us at an incredible disadvantage with our competitors.”
The proposed bill, Lynch said in a public hearing, “does not give us an unlimited exemption to withhold anything that we wish.”
More: Wisconsin coach Greg Gard sounds off on state of college basketball
Lawmakers on the Assembly Committee on State Affairs recommended the bill’s passage in the Feb. 11 public hearing.
UW spokesman John Lucas noted in an emailed statement to the Journal Sentinel that the bill would “help level the playing field with at least 32 states that have already crafted legislation” to help universities respond to “dramatic shifts” in the NIL-influenced college athletics landscape.
“We’ve modeled this after some very specific statutory protections that are in other states,” Lynch said while using Ohio, Texas, Connecticut and West Virginia as examples.
Lucas also tied the need for support to the sustainability of sports that do not generate as much revenue as football and basketball. The competitiveness of football and basketball, Lucas said, “provides the financial underpinning for our highly successful Olympic sports programs.”
“Given the current state of college athletics, fielding a competitive football program while also sponsoring 22 additional sports at a competitive level is unsustainable without changes to our current operational model,” Lucas said.
McIntosh went a step further in the public hearing. He fears Wisconsin eventually “will face a choice” if the bill is not passed, noting a “significant threat” to Olympic sports and women’s sports.
“That choice will be a choice around our financial model going forward,” McIntosh said. “It’ll be a choice around the expectations of our competitive success, or it’ll be a choice around the opportunities that we provide and the number of opportunities that we provide. … I worry that if A.B. 1034 is not passed, it will put us in a position in which we will have to make some terribly difficult decisions.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How proposed bill could impact Wisconsin's NIL, provide public funding
Continue reading...
A bill proposed in the Wisconsin legislature – and up for a floor vote in the Assembly on Feb. 19 – would formalize rules around name, image and likeness opportunities for college athletes in the state while providing taxpayer funding for athletic facility maintenance.
UW-Madison, the one power-conference athletic department in the University of Wisconsin System, would receive $14.6 million of taxpayer money annually for debt service for maintaining its athletic facilities. UW-Milwaukee would receive $200,000 for debt service and maintenance for the Klotsche Center, and UW-Green Bay would receive $200,000 for debt service for its athletic facilities.
The proposed funds would come as the Badgers try to remain competitive in the era of direct revenue-sharing with athletes, which is capped at $20.5 million across all sports. Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh said in a public hearing that he has heard anecdotally that UW’s peers are spending $10 million to $20 million “on top of that to have a successful football program.”
The NIL components of the proposed bill would officially codify athletes’ existing ability to profit off their NIL and obtain an agent for NIL purposes – aspects of NIL that the NCAA has allowed nationally since 2021. The bill requires disclosures of NIL deals, which already is required by the College Sports Commission for anything at or above $600.
The bill also proposes NIL stipulations that do not allow athletes to enter deals that conflict with the university’s agreements or involve the athlete’s performance. Athletes also would not be allowed to endorse tobacco, alcohol, gambling, banned or illegal substances or illegal activity.
More: How Wisconsin’s new Under Armour contract can be big piece of NIL puzzle
Language also exists to clarify that athletes are “not an employee of the system” because of their compensation. An amendment to the bill filed on Feb. 16 includes language to clarify the “employment status of certain student athletes” at private universities as well, which would notably include Marquette.
In the same bill as the proposed use of public funds, there also would be an official exemption to the state’s public record law for athletes’ NIL deals and revenue allocations or deployments “when competitive reasons require confidentiality.”
There already is a lack of transparency on exact NIL and revenue-sharing numbers across the country, with universities often denying open records requests due to either federal student privacy laws or exemptions for trade secrets.
“We seek only to codify our existing practice of denying access to student-athlete NIL agreements and certain university records related to NIL strategy, allocation, revenue generation and use,” said Nancy Lynch, UW’s vice chancellor for legal affairs, “the release of which would put us at an incredible disadvantage with our competitors.”
The proposed bill, Lynch said in a public hearing, “does not give us an unlimited exemption to withhold anything that we wish.”
More: Wisconsin coach Greg Gard sounds off on state of college basketball
Lawmakers on the Assembly Committee on State Affairs recommended the bill’s passage in the Feb. 11 public hearing.
UW spokesman John Lucas noted in an emailed statement to the Journal Sentinel that the bill would “help level the playing field with at least 32 states that have already crafted legislation” to help universities respond to “dramatic shifts” in the NIL-influenced college athletics landscape.
“We’ve modeled this after some very specific statutory protections that are in other states,” Lynch said while using Ohio, Texas, Connecticut and West Virginia as examples.
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Lucas also tied the need for support to the sustainability of sports that do not generate as much revenue as football and basketball. The competitiveness of football and basketball, Lucas said, “provides the financial underpinning for our highly successful Olympic sports programs.”
“Given the current state of college athletics, fielding a competitive football program while also sponsoring 22 additional sports at a competitive level is unsustainable without changes to our current operational model,” Lucas said.
McIntosh went a step further in the public hearing. He fears Wisconsin eventually “will face a choice” if the bill is not passed, noting a “significant threat” to Olympic sports and women’s sports.
“That choice will be a choice around our financial model going forward,” McIntosh said. “It’ll be a choice around the expectations of our competitive success, or it’ll be a choice around the opportunities that we provide and the number of opportunities that we provide. … I worry that if A.B. 1034 is not passed, it will put us in a position in which we will have to make some terribly difficult decisions.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: How proposed bill could impact Wisconsin's NIL, provide public funding
Continue reading...
