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NCAA Culture Shift Afoot: College Athletes and Revenue

College football players in action
TAMUC Photo
The two sports that generate the highest revenues for colleges, universities, and the NCAA are football and men's basketball.

The state of California recently passed legislation, currently proposed to take effect in 2023, that could place the rights to generate revenue against a college athlete's own name, image, or likeness into the hands of the college athlete, something heretofore verboten by the NCAA in the name of amateurism. The legislation also proposes to prohibit the NCAA from blocking players or universities from competition if players do profit from their name/image/likeness (NIL) rights, and futher, would allow players to individually obtain legal and agency support to manage the player's own interests.

Dr. Courtney Flowers
Dr. Courtney Flowers is an Associate Professor of Sport Management in the Department of Health, Kinesiology, & Sport Studies at Texas Southern University

While the debate over the impact of such a law in California rages on in the world of collegiate sports, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that he would also support state legislation that allows his state's more than 11,000 college athletes to profit from their own NIL rights.

On today's episode of North by Northeast, we're gathering context for discussion by listening back through a March 2018 episode of NPR's Code Switch podcast where reporter Gene Demby asks, "Why shouldn't we pay college athletes?"

Jasmine Baker on the sideline at a football game in Commerce
Credit TAMUC photo
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TAMUC photo
Jasmine Baker on the sideline at a football game at Texas A&M University-Commerce.

Guests discussing this topic include Dr. Courtney Flowers, an Associate Professor of Sport Management in the Department of Health, Kinesiology, and Sport Studies at Texas Southern University; and Dallas-area sports journalist Jasmine Baker.

Jerrod Knight oversees station programming, news and sports operations, individual and corporate development efforts, business and budget planning and execution, and technical operations.
Mark Haslett has served at KETR since 2013. Since then, the station's news operation has enjoyed an increase in listener engagement and audience metrics, as well recognition in the Texas AP Broadcasters awards.
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