This is awful all the way down, and nobody who believes that college athletes should have the same rights as all other Americans should vote for it https://twitter.com/ByBerkowitz/status/1337139232280899585

We don't need to "permit" athletes to earn compensation for the use of their NILs via new federal laws; we simply need to enforce existing federal antitrust law to stop permitting NCAA schools from colluding to unjustly enrich themselves by selling property that isn't theirs.

NILs belong to athletes. Not schools! Not the NCAA! They're the private property of athletes. It's not the place of the schools or the NCAA or Congress to pretend otherwise so they can unilaterally decide what athletes can do with their own property.

Imagine being a college student and your school tells you it's renting out your car to a TV network and repainting it with shoe company logos and keeping the money generated by that, and then a benevolent Senator introduces a bill to let you drive your own car on, like, Tuesdays.

Oh, and if you don't like this, maybe you can go to Europe, because every other American college has agreed to do the same thing. Meanwhile, federal judges have decided to look the other way, and everyone else is okay with it because "nobody forced you to go to college."

We also don't need new federal laws to "protect" college athletes and families from deceptive business practices and exploitation by unscrupulous actors. We already have plenty of laws that cover this stuff!

If we *actually* wanted to protect college athletes and their families from deceptive business practices and exploitation by unscrupulous actors, we'd start by enforcing existing laws against the NCAA and its member schools!

Moreover, we sure as *hell* wouldn't write federal laws designed to "preserve amateurism," which flagrantly violates antitrust law and denies college athletes equal rights and access to their own property so schools can impose a un-negotiated salary cap on marketing labor.

Booster money is so exploitative, dangerous, and evil that the NCAA and its schools want it written into *federal law* that only they can receive it, and not college athletes!

Imagine a United States Senator introducing a bill that outlawed people giving money to chemistry or math or drama students, but left it legal to give that same money to chemistry and math and drama departments.

Now, maybe your rejoinder here is "what about competitive balance," to which I say, "what competitive balance?" and also, since when do Republicans think it's the government's place to enforce the pretend notion that Alabama and UTEP football can have equally talented workforces?

If a booster wants to give money to a school or an athlete or an athletes family or a coach buyout or to build a bronze statue of Steve Spurrier, that's between them and the IRS!

And while it's bad enough that this bill wants to make the made-up, whatever the NCAA says it is concept of amateurism a matter of federal law, it's even worse that the bill also wants to make that concept apply to athletes who *aren't even enrolled at NCAA schools*

Like, where does the NCAA get off even pretending that they have any right or reason to tell high school students what they can do with their personal property or how they can or can't make money?

We don't need the FTC to create a new quasi-governmental but actually private entity to police athlete NIL activity. Again, we already have contract law!

Nobody is suggesting that we need the FTC to do the same thing for the use of coach NILs, or college student NILs, or NILs for any other American.

Likewise, nobody is suggesting we create a "uniform, national framework" for how anybody else on a college campus or in America in general is compensated for their NILs. To repeat myself: we already have contract law!

The entire framing of this issue is completely upside down. NIL rights are not a privilege for the NCAA and schools and lawmakers to hand out in a time and manner of their choosing; they are private property of athletes who have been exploited and stolen from for decades.