Transcripts For CSPAN2 NCAA 20240703

Buckeye broadband supports cspan along with Television Providers giving you a frontrow seat to democracy. The president of the ncaa joined, Trinity Thomas and others to testify on compensation for College Athletes for the use of their name, image and likens. They testified before the Senate Judiciary committee advocating for a federal standard and discussing the need for transparency and equity. Hearing of the judiciary hearing is called to order. Please take your seats and welcome to all of our witnesses. I am very grateful to my colleague senator durbin for giving me the opportunity to chair the hearing and we wish him a very, very speedy recovery. He evidently had knee surgery. I believe it may have been because of a College Sports injury and i dont know exactly all the details. Ive seen him in the senate gym but all of you know our colleague senator booker who is truly a College Athlete star and very knowledgeable on this topic and a partner with me in longstanding efforts to reform the system, i want to thank our Ranking Member senator graham who has been very interested and involved in this issue and i am going to put in the record a statement of chairman durbin before i begin my remarks. We all know today that the system of College Athletes is in need of reform. Thats why youre here. Its in need of reform now which is why we are here. The system all too long and often has been exploited and abusive financially, emotionally, physically and we have had a number of hearings in other committees. The Commerce Committee as well as this one and i am hopeful that this very impressive Bipartisan Group of witnesses can help to guide us toward specific steps with a sense of urgency that is appropriate for this kind of problem. The system simply has been far more focused on profits than protecting students and it has failed to safeguard them against the abusive and often exploitive system that takes advantage of their blood, sweat and tears in creating a 16 billiondollar industry, make no mistake, it is a 16 billiondollar or more industry that is fueled by the blood, sweat and tears of these athletes and all too often they fail to benefit from it. Many states have passed nil legislation. The Supreme Court has ruled in a 9 to 0 decision that has forced in a sense a day of reckoning and i believe strongly that we need a National Standard for name, emand and likeness namely to protect the athletes against inscrupulous deals in a race to the bottom among a patch work of states. Thats important not only protect the schools against unfair competition but also the athletes themselves and the idea of a National Standard is what brings us here today in a very immediate sense. Athletes are better off now than before. Charlie baker, the head of the ncaa specifically outlined some of the report that is they have taken voluntarily. Weve all read and heard alarming examples of these instances of exploitation and abuse. Every year at least two college if you believe players die of heat stroke. Just 3 months mizelle was found in locker room after if you believe practicing suffering seizure with body temperature of 108degrees. Manzelle never recovered. Gruesome is gruesome way to die. Win at all cost culture that is far too common in Athletic Departments. That culture creates the condition that caused the lives of talented young men and women like mizelle and the abuse and Sexual Assault at bailor, north western, san jose state and elsewhere. The ncaa in past years has failed to the address this abuse as quickly and effectively as i should have. I agree that we should set a strong National Standard and we ought to enshrine it in federal law enforceable, not just put it in the statutes but make sure that it is enforceable either through the separate corporation that senator booker and i have proposed to enforcing athletes bill of rights or through some other means. As importantly as nil, though, we need to address enforceable health and Safety Standards much more broadly and comprehensively. We need to ensure that College Athletes are able to get education in return for their blood, sweat and tears. In july i was proud to announce a draft bipartisan bill with senator booker and senator moran, College Athletes protection and compensation act. Our draft legislation would establish a Strong National nil standard but it would also protect the wellbeing and educational success of student athletes. Student athletes package would set health, Safety Standards to protect College Athletes from serious injury, mistreatment, abuse and even death. It would guaranty tuition and aid to student athletes that suffer a careerending injury or a cut from a team. It would establish medical trust fund to Cover Health Care for longterm injuries resulting from College Athletes participation in sports and it would bring transparency to the nil market and to College Athletes programs. We talk about these kinds of reforms for more than a decade. The time for action is now. Their lives ongoing, careers at stake, individuals who really need and deserve this kind of protection and im very grateful for senator durbin and committee for addressing this topic. I would like to turn to the Ranking Member. Thank you, senator blumenthal. We are hoping that senator durbin will get back soon. In my case i just want to run 40, i dont care how long it takes. I will try to get senator bookers number and put it online and see if i can make a little money. What number were you . 81. So we meet today with the world on fire to my democratic colleagues you have been very good to work with in trying to find a response attack of hamas against israel, as we talk about one of their for fun things in american life, College Sports i just want to let everybody know that this the committee is trying to find a way to be helpful. In terms of being helpful where i come from, South Carolina and many people in this side College Football was not a sport, its a religion and were very concerned about where this thing is going. I think theres a lot of bipartisan support. There needs to be a National Standard. All of your schools need to have some guidance that applies to everybody all of the time i think if you make College Athletes employees, you will knock nongenerating sports particularly women athletics will go away. As you try to elevate some of the star players to make sure they get a piece of the pie, we dont want to create an environment where division two or Smaller Division one schools will be knocked out of the game because they cant afford it. I want it still to be amateur sport to the best that we can. So to me i want to associate myself with what senator blumenthal said, there needs to be a federal standard. Utah is offering everybody on the team a new truck. Theres no end to this. You know, donors are out there competing ferociously and in prosports you signed a contract and nobody will take the player away from you for a certain period of time. You have a chance to get your money back. Between the portal and nil College Football is an absolute chaos. And we need to fix it. And so National Legislation is the only way to fix it and our desire to protect the athlete which is a worthy goal, we cant destroy by making it so expensive nonrevenue generating sports. We want to make sure that athletes at every college, small colleges can play too. Thats the goal and i look forward to trying to find a solution, thank you. Thank you, senator graham. I will introduce the witnesses and we will swear them in and turn into their statements. We are pleased to have all of you today, charry baker our first witness, president of ncaa, mr. Baker former player at harvard who also happened to serve as governor of massachusetts from 2015 to 2023. We are joined by tony patiti, commissioner to have big 10 conference, big 10, one of the power 5 conferences is home to several house Athletic Programs which i know chair durbin, illinois and northwestern university. Our next witness is Trinity Thomas an allamerican gymnast at the university of florida among many accomplishments ms. Thomas top honda award and she holds record for perfect 10s with 28. Shes currently pursuing her second masters degree and built impressive nil portfolio. We are joined by remogi, executive director of the college, National College players association, he helped to found for College Athletes rights, mr. Puma earned degree from ucla where he was a member of the if you believe team and hes been helpful in the past not only in advocacy but helping us shape legislation mr. Walker jones, executive director of the grove collective and entity to help athletes at the university of mississippi monetized their nil rights. Mr. Jones graduated with a bachelor degree from the university of mississippi where he was a member of the college if you believe team. Ms. Jill, Vice President director of athletics and she can deal how small forker universities are dealing with advent of nil and finally, Vice President and director of athletics at the university of notre dame. Earlier this year he coauthored an oped in the New York Times discussing the state of College Sports. We welcome all of you and would you please rise to take the oath which is our custom. Do you swear that the testimony that youll give is the truth, nothing but the truth so help you god . Thank you very much. Mr. Baker will begin with your testimony, please. [away from microphone] i think your microphone may not be on. Better . Yeah. Thank you very much senator blumenthal, to your and to Ranking Member graham and the distinguished members to have commit. I want to start by thanking you for the opportunity for being here today. Before i begin i want to say that on behalf of College Sports generally we condemn the recent violence perpetrated by hamas, these acts were horrific, hard to comprehend and thoughts with the people of israel and the innocence that are involved in that conflict. In advance of my testimony today we did speak with leaders from 3 divisions and others to ensure that im speaking for broad collection of nca voices as possible, that this committee has made time to discus College Sports speak to their importance and we very much appreciate it. College sports are a ticket to an education for half a million young people generating 4 billion in college aid. College sports are cornerstones to countless campuses and in turn they are cornerstones for thriving communities. College sports are americas olympic pipeline with 75 of the 2022 team usa coming up through nca sports. College sports are also overdue for a change but im proud to say we have been doing something about that. Since i took over at nca president 7 months ago we created a Student Athlete Health Insurance Fund that will provide all athletes across all 3 divisions access to healthcare for athletically related injuries for up to two years post eligibility or graduation. Every school is now required to provide healthcare benefits, degree completion funds for at least ten years after they stop competing and Mental Health services to their student athletes. Scholarships are protected and schools must offer academic counseling, career preparation. We prioritized equitable championship experiences in National Leadership to put gender equity at the center of everything that they do. The nca also continues to advance common sense changes to Sports Betting policies and enforcement policies that penalize the adults not the young people. Nca is moving nil bylaws forward to improve outcomes for student athletes, we share the concern there because they deserve to profit from nil free from manipulation, the changes are long overdue and they are happening now thanks in part for cause for action from members of this committee and from the student athlete themselves. There are some issues College Sports face that we the ncaa cannot address on our own. New bylaw proposal require student athletes to disclose certain information to their schools only and offers incentives to use fair contact terms the and reputable agents. We want to partner with congress to go further and curtailish deucements and prevent collectives and third parties from tampering can students and we would like to have a National Standard request a watch work of laws as you pointed out, senator blumenthal, currently existsment School Conferences in the ncaa are making changes to the benefit that we provide and protecting programs from a one size fits all approach, we support codifying current regulatory into law by granting special status that would affirm that they are not employees. And on this point we are not alone. I visited college in south dakota with senator john thune to hear why athletes dont want to become employees. The elected School Representatives on three division are on record saying the same thing. They fear the current legal landscape and they have called for action. The athletic conferences representing the vast majority of historically black colleges and universities have also supported this policy. They believe the progress theyve made educating young people of color would be at risk if their Athletic Departments had to become employers. We also think theres opportunity for congress to ensure in this new area of collectives that theres no discrimination on the basis of race, gender or sport in the marketing or facilitation of nil agreements and lastly, we want to partner with congress to grant limited Liability Protections so we can set reasonable competition standards and enforce Student Health and wellbeing requirements with direction from congress. Let me just close with this, we are grateful for the time youre giving us today and appreciate the chance to Exchange Ideas with you and i learn serving as governor that the legislative branch has immense power and rightfully yield its bearingly but i believe we can find Common Ground on this and i look forward helping student athletes succeed in this new era. Thank you. Thanks, governor baker. Ms. Pitti. Thank you, senator blumenthal, Ranking Member graham, distinguished member, thank you for discussing pertinent issues and thank you for your strong commitment to finding legislative solutions. We have been working closely with senators cruz, booker on legislative proposals. My name is tony petitti, the countrys oldest division one collegiate conference. Although ive only been commissioner for six months i have a listening history of working in professional and College Sports particularly Major League Baseball and former student athlete and first of my family to attend college. Big ten conference is deeply committed to academics, research and broadbase sports opportunities for all students. We take great pride in the success of our student athletes both inside and outside of the classroom during time at big ten institutions as well as afterwards. Student athlete welfare is a top priority and we provide post separation health care which guaranties our student athletes have access to medical care and Mental Health services during and after their time on campus. While the big ten and other conferences current i will provide these important benefits the big ten is open to and supports efforts for a digital wellness to our student athletes. Student athlete model has undergone rapid transformation. We see this complements of events as an opportunity to modify the dynamics that exist for student athletes. We are prepared to modernize our guidelines to create a new framework for collegiate athletics. One that more fairly provides benefits to student athletes directly from member institutions maintains broad base sports opportunities for men and women and upholds title 9. We see four main challenges that must be addressed by proper regulation to better protect and serve student athletes and to support a new governing structure. First, there are now more than 30 different state laws related to name, image and likens and many states are passing nil and provide competitive advantage in recruiting to the promise of nil. To provide certainty, equity and competitive balance a federal statute is needed to preempt this network of state laws. Second because of the combination of Court Decisions current, litigation and state actions the ncaa is unable to make or enforce common sense regulations governing athletics. Through Legislation Congress should grant limited and conditional Liability Protections so that we can set and enforce reasonable competitive standards and promote student athlete welfare. Third is the ability to effectively identify true nil deals from pay to play or inducement schemes particularly with rise of collectives. Student athletes are frequently induce bid collectives to attend institutions and transfer from one school to another without true nil deal. This has resulted in pay for play system prime errly controlled by boosters and executed under the guys of nil. We are concerned that management of College Athleticses is shifting away from universities to collectives. The big ten will continue to support students making true business deals off of their name, image and likeness and provide the freedom to choose institutions for from which they will obtain education. We do not support activity when its disguised as pay to play in nil. Were already seeing payments from collectives will not be easy to sustain. Without action from congress we will continue to lack the ability to manage collegiate athletics. Finally, i want to touch on the question of whether students athletes should be classified as employees. Not only employee status complex but contrary to the educational model that has long flourished in athletics. Big ten supports congressional proposals that guaranty consistency across states and sports without the need to classify student athletes as employees. With many new challenges on the horizon, we look to congress for your partnership and helping us embrace change and ensure that we tackle the new challenges effectively while celebrating and promoting College Athletics, thank you again for the opportunity to appear before you today and i look forward to answering any questions that you may have. Thank you, mr. Petitti. Miss thomas. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak here today. Ive spent the last five years competing on the university of floridas gymnastics team. Over the course of my time in ufi completed my bachelors degree and my masters degree in Health Education and behavior. Ive had the privilege of competing before and after image and likeness, opportunities became available and experiences i had along the way have helped me develop into the young woman that i am today. Im currently serving as student assistant coach at the university of florida while pursuing second masters degree in entrepreneurship and training for olympic trials in 2024. As a student athlete at the university of florida ive had the opportunity to receive an education from a top 5 university while also competing against some of the guest gymnasts in the nation. Competing against the best athletes on the biggest stages have provided me with more opportunities than i ever imagined possible when i started gymnastics as a little girl in pennsylvania. One of the biggest opportunities that College Gymnastics has given is changes in nil policies. While student athletes i was immediately intrigued when the rules were changed. It took many and many fellow athletes to navigate waters of nil and everyone is still learning as we go given its new and unchartered territory. Its been interesting to navigate but i was able to interview and sign with agencies, partner with various companies, learn to become an entrepreneur, focus on building my grand and work on so many cool personal projects that mean a lot to me. The first year that student athletes had the ability to take advantage of nil i was able to get ipads for younger siblings as christmas kids. I worked with companies to support women sports and more. Unfortunately one of the parts of nil that makes it difficult for student athletes is varying laws and regulations that are in place from state to state. There currently is no single standard that applies to all student athletes in all sports which oftentimes leaves us confused. In some case it is different laws also place certain student athletes at a disadvantage depending where they go to school. Recently i was invited to attend sec day on the hill in washington, d. C. To speak with representatives from congress. Most of my discussion centered around the issue of nil and allowed me to share personal experiences as a student athlete including how nil policies have impacted me personally both the positive and the areas where there could still be improvements. While discussions were positive, it seemed clear that the best path forward for everyone would be if we had a federal nil policy that applied to all athletes from every sport at every school and at every level. This will create equal opportunity for all student athletes to benefit from nil and will create a uniform standard to ensure we are all playing by the same rules and eliminate confusion and unfair advantages. A federal law will also have the benefit of ensuring the future of sports like gymnastics are protected. The sec is one of the nations hot bed for showcases and developing olympic talent and huge loss well beyond College Athleticses if the sports were put at risk due to future legislation that might come from one state or another. Protecting the future of my sport and the dozens of other sports that have developed future olympians should be a top priority not only women and olympics sport at collegiate leverage helped women like me received education and helped athletes benefit from the very same nil opportunities that have experienced during my time as student athlete at the university of florida. While College Sports took a step forward with nil during my time at student athlete, more can still be done to better the lives of all student athletes. Im hopeful that we will soon have a National Standard and the future of College Athletics will be improved for the next generation of student athletes. Thank you for taking to focus on a time thats important for me and hundreds of thousands of student athletes all over the nation. Thank you so much, ms. Thomas. Mr. Huma. Good morning. First, i would like to thank chairman durbin and Ranking Member graham, senator blumenthal, the National College player association, the ncpa served as sponsor of the first law in the nation and fought for nil laws in a dozen other states. Colleges have the ability to earn nil compensation just like other College Students and american citizens. Athletes have freedoms. While there are nil related areas that should be finetuned, athlete agent certification, there are more important issues that desperately need congress to prioritize. Instead of adopting an nil only bill, congress should include broad base reform that is critical in protecting College Athletes. Many are shocked to learn that the nca refuses to ensure Safety Standards. Its not against nca rules for College Athletics to force back into the game can a concussion, sexually assaulting and the late responds that it has no duty to protect College Athletes. Then whose duty is it . These colleges receive federal funds while creating Hazardous Conditions for their athletes. Ncpa and congress has a responsibility to protect College Athletes. Ncpa asks committee not to follow the ncas league by skirting this important duty. Ncpa is grateful for members taking active role and trying to address problems in nca sports through legislation. Ncpa has been working with senators booker, blumenthal and moran on a bipartisan draft that addresses nil issues but broadbased reforms and draft continues to head in a promising legislation and Bipartisan Legislation cannot have poison pills that would kill. Such a bill shouldnt attempt require or prohibit athlete revenue sharing or Employment Status or give antitrust exemptions. Both before and after state nil laws became effective Lobby Congress for antitrust which ncpa strongly opposes. Antitrust lawsuits, doj antitrust investigations and targeting antitrust violations have brought forth important economic freedoms and protections for College Athletes because of antitrust laws. Nc can no longer price fix below cost of attendance. Limit scholarships to one year and prohibit colleges providing medical coverage or ban athletes from earning nio compensation. The nca is a chronic antitrust violater and example why antitrust laws are needed in this country. Another important issue and one of separate bill would require athletes to spend additional hours traveling at the expense of their academics and their health. New developments are nothing but a greedy money grab that treats athletes like commodities and education like a bunch line. Using athletes in predominantly black sports to create more tv dollars while black football and athletes suffer lowest Graduation Rate is unjustifiable. Another problem is that as mega conferences emerge each team will have less of a chance to win their conference. Colleges and mega conferences are literally selling out their athletic future for tv dollars just to give a pay bump to coaches athletic administrators and spend on more shining facilities. This is shortsided. This harm cause athletes and encourage to pass legislation and would base on reasonable proximity and limit the number of colleges in a conference. Theres no secret theres partisan division. When it comes to the wellbeing of College Athletes, lawmakers who care about athletes find themselves on the same team regardless of Political Party. Every future current and former College Athlete in each of your states need you to join this team and pas meaningful broadbased legislation. Thank you. Thanks very much, mr. Huma, mr. Jones. Senator blumenthal, Ranking Members graham. Thank you for invite megato be here today. Im also a Founding Member of the tca or collective association which is compromised of 25 leggic collectives from across the landscape serving and over 50,000 student athletes and 25 sports. Our goal to serve as unified voice to shape the development of nil of the nil market in College Sports by creating sustainable model that give student athletes the ability to maximize the nil platforms. Current data shows that collective are responsible for approximately 80 of athletes through nil activities. Given the figure tca is unique and members possess and willing to share knowledge how nil is working in your local communities and we seek to partner with anyone who wants to produce wellinformed and effective legislation benefiting collegiate student athletes first. Like all stakeholders we work with everyone in the ecosystem with nil commerce. Before we deal with substance, let me be clear about one thing. Our organization and i are extremely bullish on College Athletics. The overwhelming majority of commerce with name image, likeness is positive. Todays student athletes have resource and ability to deal with the realities that inevitable come in life. Athletes have the ability to solve socioEconomic Issues, stay in School Longer to further academic careers, locate the best possible competitive the situations athletically and more functional contributor to society when they leave their respective campuses. Finally, as tv viewership continues to break records each weekend in College Football season this year in past spring with march madness, maximize their value has never been stronger. Nil landscape continues to experience growing pains of any free market model. The tca members feel those in this panel today and other important stakeholders share the expertise and passion along with congress to Work Together for longterm sustainability and growth of College Athletics. If need is the mother of all innovation collectives were born from the need of athletes to have secure entity representing their interest. Student athletes trust our collectives and this is caused tension at times between affiliate institutions, collegiate and ncaa, our singular focus is on the student athletes who would otherwise be forced to navigate this new and constantly evolving environment on their own. We root for and work with every student athlete that choses to work with us not just the superstar athletes. While no one would be surprised that the majority of the student athletes and work originate around football mens basketball our efforts have particularly benefited women and nonrevenue sports. In fact, a 20 increase in womens nil deals from 2021 to 2022 and we expect an even larger increase at the end of 23. All this leaves me to talk about what we as collective stands for. We stand for creating opportunities for athletes to match with National Local sponsors, nonprofits and charities while creating avenues to interact with fan bases, we are independent businesses separate and letting departments and student athletes served best and we provide resource and tools to help athletes to help monetize value and prepare for future professions and careers. We provide transparency and disclosure to our University Partners to remain compliant with state and ncaa rules and regulation. Finally, most importantly we are committed to diversity and inclusion in sourcing in opportunities for all athletes. It would be helpful to elaborate on what collectives are not. We are not agents, we are not Financial Advisers to the athletes we serve. We do not participate in the recruiting process and desire to not to only work with athletes once they have decided to attend our school. That is best left to coaches and Athletic Departments on the strict watch of ncaa. We are not organizations run by out of control boosters and donors. Most collectors operate with fulltime businesses with infrastructure staff, transparency and our universities and constituents. I thank you for your time and look forward answering any and all your questions. Senator blumenthal, Ranking Member graham and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify here today. I am especially appreciative of the invitation because fear that the voice of institutions like st. Joes has been lost in the public narrative. As you know, College Athletics is extraordinarily diverse. The reality is the Division One School like st. Joes College Athletics is actually working quite well. Before we consider starting over and transitioning all student athletes across the country to employee status based largely on the issues facing one sport, id like to tell you a little bit more about life at st. Joes, we have 478 student athletes which equate to 10 of student body, Holistic Development of our student athletes. Our student athletes go to class and select majors which theyre passionate about. More than half of student athletes participate in sports that arent bound to a regular season conference can she think meaning that they rarely travel overnight and miss class. Our student athletes outperform our nonstudent athletes in gpa, retention rates and Graduation Rates. We have many student athlete who is are former olympians, professional athletes, hall of fame coaches but most of athlete goes to successful careers outside of sport. Last year just 3. 9 of undergraduate student athletes proffered. Our annual expense budget is just over 20 million which includes almost half of that which goes towards Student Financial aid. As you know, many power 5 institutions have budgets ten times as large as ours. Our revenue while growing does not equal our expenses. In fact, the university subsidizes our Athletic Department to the tune of 80 per year. Why does the university make this investment . Primarily because athletes benefit and are enriched from the experiences they gain from being a student athlete and prepares them to be the leaders of tomorrow. Division one athletics also benefits the entire university by creating a more vibrant Campus Experience and providing national exposure. At st. Joes we are not waiting for ncaa rule to tell us to help protect health and safety of our student athletes, we do so because its fundamental to who we are and employ dozens of individuals whole sole job to support academic success. Number one operating expense is premiums and medical expenses. I hope that you will agree that athletics is working quite well for institutions like saint joes, in my opinion the primary crisis facing College Athletics is threat of student athletes becoming employees. I practiced labor and Employment Law before getting into this line of work. I do not believe Employment Status is the answer nor do our student athletes. They dont want to have to apply for posted positions. What they are really going for is an education. They dont want to go to the state work comp for injuries or punch a clock or worried what might be compensable time under flsa. If athletes are deemed employees we will transition Financial Aid to wages. The taxation between wages and tuition are extreme and not in favor of our student athletes. Our 51 International Student athletes want to compete and would not be able to do so due to f1 student status. For these reasons and many more im passionate about the granting of special status to student athlete that is would confirm that they are not employees of their respective institutions. On the other hand, we desperately need reform when it comes to nil. Like most of directors ive been supportive to nil, legitimate endorsement deals like those obtained by ms. Thomas is awesome especially for women who have limited opportunities in professional sports and whose value peaks during college years. Unfortunately, the current nil situation is unattainable for 3 reasons. Number 1, nil collectives are engaged in bidding wars for retention of student athletes. Number 2, under current rule title 9 does not apply to collectives resulting in disproportionate of collective dollars going to male athletes and number 3, the patch work of conflicting state laws governing nil are confusing to everyone especially the student athletes and create a profoundly unequal Playing Field. In sum, thank you for your attention today and thank you for hearing the voice of the nonpower 5 schools like saint joes and beyond. Ms. Thomas for whom support is a route to education, Leadership Development and brighter futures. College athletics represents the most compelling example of that for me. Its a uniquely American Asset that has enabled education for first generation americans, made our colleges and universities more diverse places, contributed to the very fabric of the University Community and sustained and supported our Olympic Movement in this country. But that unique asset most of all if it is going to continue to deliver those sort of benefits that we understood that and it was evident when president reagan became the first in an oped piece to call on the granting of rights for name image and likeness for all student athletes. More recently in an oped piece, father jenkins also demonstrated our support for medical trust funds and for graduation guarantees to student athletes. The Common Thread in the view at the university of notre dame is normalizing the experience of student athletes against that of students who are not athletes. That was the basis of our opinion on name, image, likeness and ideas. If every other student at the campus had that right, why shouldnt student athletes. A similarly, where there is a difference based on athletic participation in this case the risk of injury in Contact Sports or the potential to leave early to pursue a professional opportunity then a distinction is appropriate and thats why we supported both of the medical trust fund and the graduation guarantee. We recognize that reform must continue and if there is a necessary role for congress to play but it cant be limited in scope. We the members must accept the responsibility to do more. We support president bakers efforts to reform name image and likeness and ideas to provide the medical and graduation protections he articulated and we must do more to help ensure that the opportunity to transfer does not undermine the opportunity to gain an education in our colleges and universities. But theres three areas in which we do need your help. First has been referred to by several people here and that is to make sure to retain a student athlete status as students. That status is being attacked administratively in litigations ongoing any state legislation. Its central to our model that our student athletes be students and not employees for many of the reasons articulated. But most importantly, our student athletes dont want a change of status. They come to notre dame to be students, to have the experience of students living in dorms, going to the same classes and pursuing the same majors. The risk of changing the model has many faces but the one that concerns me the most is the risk to our olympic sports and our female sports and colleges and universities. It will create a pressure to separate the sports and with that separation comes a challenge to the funding of the olympic sports. We also need help in preempting the myriad of state laws which set different standards for College Athletics. College athletics is the quintessential example of interstate commerce. We have more of our contests outside of the state of indiana van in it and finally we need a way to satisfy the student athletes interest in competitive equity. They wanted the opportunity to participate and win. They want to know theres an even Playing Field. We have to find a way to deliver that to them. That can come either by empowering in limited areas to enable competitive equity or to develop a process by which we can agree with our student athletes on what the rules and regulations should be. Our student athletes deserve the competitive equity that we need to deliver to them. Thank you very much. Thank you very, very much. I thank you all for this really excellent testimony. We left questions now from Committee Members and we will have fiveminute rounds. I will begin and then turn to the Ranking Member and we will go in the order of appearance. What i hear is a strong endorsement of College Athletics to the Unifying Force for our communities and the senator mentioned College Athletics as a religion in South Carolina. I dont know if it is in connecticut but we celebrate victory in connecticut as you know the uconn huskies have the fifth championship. The hockey team was victorious as well and we have parades literally through the streets of hartford when it happens. So i think youve all highlighted the unique Unifying Force that College Athletics and the opportunity to students and the unique opportunity that we have and the need to do it now for reform. I hear are also strong also strn to the opposition to classify athletes as employees. I hear a general feeling that the reform very likely should go beyond strictly and il. And some of your colleges and st. Josephs and notre dame most impressively are already embarking on many of the reforms that we have proposed but we need to avoid a race to the bottom a bidding war among the colleges that often tempt College Athletes with unscrupulous deals or agents and put colleges at the mercy of an unequal Playing Field. What id like to do is now focus on the reforms that may avoid the need for even that employee status that seems so alluring to many who propose reform. Id like to ask all of you and in the interest of time im going to put it to you collectively would any of you oppose the creation of a medical trust fund to cover healthcare for student athletes longterm entry . If you would oppose it, raise your hand and i will call on you. Nobody opposes it. The record should show what you oppose guaranteeing the scholarships of student athletes that suffer an injury or who are cut from a team . If you oppose it, please raise your hand. Again, the record should show no one here opposes it. What you oppose setting and forcible Health Safety standards to protect College Athletes from serious injury, abuse and death . Again, no one opposes it and finally, would you oppose the requirement for at least high revenue schools to support the insurance costs and outofpocket medical expenses of student athletes . No opposition. I think your views on this issue are profoundly important in the show that we need to think beyond just and ils standards. I am struck and this issue has been raised by the difference in treatment of women athletes. Female athletes under the present system apparently earned approximately 900 compared to the 3,000 which is the average for male athletes as reported by the platform open doors. It seems to me that this area is one where reform is necessary, and id like to ask ms. Thomas for your views on this topic. Can you repeat the question for me, please . The difference between men and women in College Sports, do you see it as an issue and how pressing . Yes, i do see it as an issue. We as a female athlete i feel like i personally have to do a lot more especially in this space to receive what i feel like i deserve. Thank you for the question, senator. To bring a little life to that right now at saint joes, male basketball student athletes are i wouldnt say demanding that asking what the collective will do for them. That is not happening in any of our womens sports, and i think its absolutely essential that we find a way to ensure male and female athletes have equal opportunity. Thank you. Thanks, senator blumenthal. Congress does nothing where does this go . I think we will wind up with a series of rulings that declares students as employees subject to the rule or other rules and regulations, but it wont happen uniformly. It will happen serially and create an unsustainable difference from state to state. We will have a patchwork of state legislation that will also create differences which are unsustainable. That for me are the things that are most important to avoid at the moment while we continue the reforms senator blumenthal articulated. Governor baker do you agree . Where do you see this going if we do nothing . I would say first of all i think that while i appreciate walker jones is optimism about men and women when it comes to participation, then numbers are, well first of all there are no publicly available numbers, so the first thing we really need to they are more than anything is some form of transparency around what people are actually getting. There are reporters that cover College Sports that wont write about this because they dont believe anything anybody tells them. Hold on a second. Mr. Jones, who is the highestpaid person in College Football . Well, again a lot of that is some urban legend im not asking about urban legend. During this business you should know. Well again, probably the highest grossing is a gymnast actually. Olivia done. How many . Again, shes making seven figures. I dont know the exact figure but well into the seven figures in her endorsement. Can i just call you tony . Thats fine, senator. Where does this go if we sit on the sidelines . I agree with whats been said. We will be having a system dictated by. State laws by the results of litigation and by the results of employment action completely unmanaged change. I think the results are unpredictable let me give you my concern. Between the coaching of players i think you will have chaos. Youve got the university of utah bringing everybody who will play a truck so we are headed down the road here of a bidding war; do you agree . I do. I think the coaches would echo the same sentiment across multiple sports instead of just the money entering the system. We say collective is a responsible for the overwhelming amount of money on the system and that money isnt really true in the deals right now so i feel you are correct, senator. Heres my concern to the committee that College Athletics needs to be available to men and women at every level. Ms. Thomas does the Gymnastic Team make money for the university of florida or do you know . Im not sure. Youve got a lot to be proud of. There are a lot of programs out there that dont make money. Is that true . That is correct. If its all about money, they are going to be left behind. Division ii schools, if you make division two, if you make people employees, governor baker, what would happen to the Division Ii Schools . I think its pretty Clear Division two and three schools would get out of the interscholastic Collegiate School business. Its going to happen, right, if you make these people employees they cant afford it. You tax everything and completely change the model and its sort of a 4x increase in what the cost would be. The Typical School has an athletic budget of five or 6 million. Thats the way you should indeed, three is more or less the same. Its 95 of the schools lose money on sports. Ninetyfive. 5 of them have serious budgets with serious revenue and a concern about employment, but a willingness to do a lot more around what they believe they should be doing for student athletes. But youre right, senator. The impact on deed two and three and by the way a lot of d1 schools and their student athletes would be profiled. It seems to me we would want to avoid that to make the College Sports available to a lot of people in Different Levels that should be one of the goals. Do you all agree with that . Everybody nods. So, mr. Chairman, lets try to find a way, senator blumenthal, to deal with of the money problem and make sure that people are taken care of as athletes and its not just the wild wild west out there. Final comment. If this committee and commerce doesnt act in about a year, this thing is going to be an absolute mess and youre going to destroy College Athletics as we know it. Thanks, senator. Wild west is exactly the right term to characterize where we are going. Thank you, chairman for holding this. Weve got so many witnesses here that its going to be hard to ask questions and get through all seven let alone ask a bunch of questions and get through all seven. So but i think ill do is mention three concerns that i have that you all are welcome to respond to in writing. We take questions for the record here and your answers become a part of the record in the proceedings. The first concern is helping student athletes avoid unfair contracts where they get locked in for too long or locked into contracts and have huge management and other fees and so forth. Whos in charge of protecting student athletes when theres so much pressure and money involved and they are not exactly experts in the art of the contract negotiations . So thats one. To is they will naturally take pretty good care of the star highvalue student athletes and the question is when the flood of money opens up, how much should we be looking at the nonstarter teammates of the star student athletes how much should we be looking at the nonremunerative teams in addition to the teams that make enormous amounts of money and what do we do about schools that dont field either remunerative teams or star athletes; do they just get left behind, or should there be a fund that tries to reach into all those areas . So thats two. A third is a pretty obvious piece, which is that there are lots of injuries that take place during student athletics. And how we manage those into the future it would seem to me if loads of money is flowing in, one good thing that would flood into would be a fund that can make sure that athletes get their healthcare covered for injuries that are traced back to their collegiate sports careers even if the manifestation comes later. We do this with veterans all the time. You have an exposure during your service in a foreign country. Twenty years later something manifests, you look back and the va provides the coverage. Something along those lines. Those are the thoughts that come to mind for me and if you have any helpful advice on that i would be grateful to have each of you take a moment to share your thoughts and writing on those. With that, mr. Chairman, thank you very much. Senator grassley. Thank you all for coming. In the middle of a lot of things that go on in the fall of the year with the University Sports and everything. Anybody that wants to respond to this because it is a concern of mine if there is no federal preemption of state laws, do you believe there will be any title ix concerns, and if there is a federal proposal, what do you propose congress do to mitigate the concerns if you think that there should be concerns raised . I dont expect all of you to answer that, but if any of you want to dig into that, i would appreciate getting your opinion. I would like to give a little perspective i think on title ixs federal law and its enforceable. There are some the collective is kind of difficult to see the degree to which they are collaborating with of the schools were separate from schools or anywhere in between. Collectives acting as an arm and sharing Central Services i think this was addressed in the draft senators berger, blumenthal and moran. There has to be a clear line. Is this an extension of the school and if it is, title ix should apply. If not, then its like nike or some other thirdparty out there. And as much as we all the beginning it was all about free Market Opportunities for College Athletics. The same one every american citizen gets. With of the free market sometimes the free market isnt that equitable in all walks of life. If you look at advertisers, you know thereve been complaints from different groups that advertisers arent including diversity in various areas. But you dont have congress trying to come in and divide things. The free market is one thing. When it comes to direct pay, title ix is applicable. Free markets, i think that there were issues being raised about whether or not male athletes get more than female athletes and that is a reflection in part again aside from the idea that some of these collectors are acting as an extension of the school. We should apply. Really its a reflection of society. Theres an equitable treatment among various subsets of groups in the free market. I think thats what we are seeing here. The other is to point out that this industry no secret of 17 billion primarily generated football and basketball players, sports that are predominantly black. The one area where they might have freedom, equal freedom the degree to which any of this money is going more towards football and basketball players because of market interest thats the economic system. Freemarket capitalism. When it comes to third parties thats the whole thing. When we advocated from california the first state in every state in between, that is clearly understood and i think that there is a bit of a blur when we are talking about thirdparty versus things the school gives directly. The title nine is a law. Member we are just now into year number three so its still evolving and adjusting but i can tell you on the ground level from a trend standpoint we are seeing a correction on the revenue sports and some selfgovernance thats taking place with of the way we are contracting with of the student athletes. But we are seeing more and more deals that are asking for female involvement. I know speaking from the university of mississippi standpoint, we tripled our female roster of nil from last year to this year. The first team deal was our Womens Basketball team. Some of the highest earners and nil as i told senator graham our female athletes. Now there is not as many of them, but what i would encourage everybody, whether title ix applies to us from a collective standpoint or not, it wouldnt change how we operate. We are operating to have a very diverse and inclusive roster because at the end of the day that is what the brand is want and that creates more value when we have the brand campaigns and we are getting requests from outside brands more for female student athletes, so the trend is developing. Is it acceptable to this point . Not acceptable but its moving in the right direction, so while the high revenue sports or kind of selfgoverning and correcting themselves, the nonrevenue into female sports are seeing a boost as the figures are showing us and what we are seeing at the ground level. Mr. Chairman, i will put the rest of my questions for answers and writing. Thank you, senator grassley. Senator kunz. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I read with great interest your editorial along with jenkins and just wanted to lift up your focus on College Athletics as part of a round to education to leadership and opportunity. Your focus on and support for medical trust fund and graduation guarantees i thought was admirable. I want to focus in on one area which is whether or not a student athletes should be considered employees. This is currently being examined in the Third Circuit and the nlrb and that sparks fierce opposition from your institution as well as the university of delaware in my home state. Why does notre dame oppose classifying student athletes as employees and what do you think a harmful impact would be on athletics across the university of notre dame and across more broadly institutions of all sizes . If that were to happen . What defines the unique american model of Intercollegiate Athletics and to be clear it doesnt exist anywhere else. Its a club system everywhere else in the world, is the integration into the educational institution. It is the opportunity to have all of the same rights and privileges of any other student. And if you put them in a separate category with all the consequences that have been articulated here, that goes away immediately. And we no longer have the model that we understand is Intercollegiate Athletics today, and fundamentally separates us from the Educational Value as president Bakers Association points out regularly, the vast majority of student athletes are not going on to continue their support after they leave college. It is the education that is the primary value of their experience. We have to protect that and their ability to be admitted under the same standards, to be educated under the same standards and to learn under the same standards. If you take that away, you do enormous damage to those current students. This is a period of huge change in College Athletics and as the chair and Ranking Member have said, we need to act. Thank you for your testimony. Are there some factors that are applicable across institutions of all sizes . Your Athletic Director and the school with a different profile than maybe a Big Ten University or university of notre dame. Are there specific factors that are key to your institution and others like it in the greater philadelphia area and across the country that congress should keep in mind as we attempt to draft the legislation that would preempt state legislation and applied to all the universities in america . I appreciate your question very much, senator. I tend to agree with colleagues at power five and other institutions when it comes to nil. I think our basketball coaches are as disappointed in what has happened in the market than anybody in the country. And so on the employment front they do think we have challenges if athletes were to be deemed employees and really meets the expense whether through taxation or the Human Resource department that is overwhelmed as we are with two mergers happening and to give them 487 additional employees to process, many of them are leaving on an annual basis. Again the taxation issues, for an institution like us and again i cant stress enough that we were spending 20 million and bringing in 4 million in revenue for athletics. This is just an unattainable situation which again i worry about the ability for us to continue fielding all 20 of the sports. Mr. Baker if i might for a closing question. Across the different legislative proposals that are in front of us and across the wide array of state laws, what do you think are the most critical provisions for us to include in legislation moving forward . I would support the state preemption issue because if you think about this at a conference level, most conferences have multiple states and if youre trying to create anything that looks like a level Playing Field to get back to the comment about the fact though she said it well there should be one set of rules for all athletes across all sports and schools i think that is exactly right. I think the employment question is obviously on everybodys mind, and im sure there are things schools especially those that can do it, which would be the 5 i talked about before who would do far more if they felt like they could do it in an environment where theres student athletes are still students. I think the issue around safe harbor limited liability whatever it is you want to call that i get the fact its a really big issue and what i would say to congress is if you want to create some sort of framework around that and guardrails, thats fine, but i do worry we are going to head down a road people are going to start a challenging whether or not we should have minimum academic standards for people to be eligible to play. Are people going to change the rules around, lets suppose we pursue the rule that i was talking about earlier where we want to create transparency because with all due respect to you, nobody knows whats going on and everything is sort of a guess and rumor so when people say we are doing better when it comes to women student athletes i dont know if thats true or not and neither does anybody else and i think theres a lot more visibility into what the price signals are so that they can make the best decision for them and their families. I give you enormous credit for what youve managed to do but theres a lot of student athletes for whom thats going to be very challenging and i think the final one would be the whole conversation that weve already had it of trying to figure out sort of the best way to deal with some of the issues around health and safety because National Standards i think we all support. Thank you for that and i do think transparency fairness and preserving the Educational Initiative is at the core of Higher Education that are key parts as we Work Together to move forward. Thank you to all the witnesses. Thank you, senator kuhn. Senator kennedy. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Its clear to me from listening today that we still have a lot of work left to do. I want to start with trying to look at this issue from 30,000 feet. For many years now, College Athlete, College Athletics has generated enormous revenues. Im not saying thats a bad thing. Its a good thing. The Supreme Court comes along in the alston case, is that right, in 2021 and changes where that money is going. Before that money was going to tv stations and universities and coaches and others, i guess. Construction companies were building new stadiums, and then after the Supreme Court decides the alston case in 2021, the kids start getting paid and all hell breaks loose. Is that what is going on here . The fact that the money is being redistributed and thats going to cause the world to spin off its axis because the kids are getting a share of the dough . Governor . What i would say in response to the decision is there is flexibility for schools that can afford to make payments to do so and they can make payments in particular sports as long as they managed to satisfy the title ix requirements and they can choose what level they want to support. I understand that, but youre getting down into the weeds and im not saying that is about the thing. But before the alston case, everything was just fine and then the case is handed down and the kids start getting some of the money, not the adults. The adults have got to share. And all of a sudden, the world is on fire. What am i missing here . For the record, i support the alston stuff and also nil. I just would like to see a little more transparency and support for information to make it easier for student athletes to succeed in this space. Let me make this suggestion and i want to hear from the rest of the panel. I would strongly encourage you and your colleagues to try to get together and come up with a new system for us to consider that looks like somebody designed it on purpose. You may regret asking congress to intervene here. All of a sudden youre going to be micromanaged. Im not saying we shouldnt, and my colleagues have raised excellent points, and it sounds to me like we do have a bit of a wild wild west as the chairman described it, but i would be careful before you invite congress in and start micromanaging your business. Let me go back to the original question. Any of you, what am i missing about this . Is in this over the fact that the kids are now getting some of the money that the adults were getting before . Yes sir. Absolutely. It seems to be fine for the industry until we won some Court Rulings and legislators started passing laws essentially [inaudible] the industry had a monopoly on College Athletes nil value. They owned every penny. Got to pay the kid, the kid cant get a penny. Thats what this is about. Maybe the schools even said if that happens we are going to lose money. That means youve been stealing money from these kids if its like the Supreme Court that violates antitrust law. Thats the problem. The opposition even employment stuck all this is about we dont want to pay them fairly. Just so you know this isnt equitable Economic Situation here. Like saying go get another job because we are not going to pay you for what you do here. We are going to camp at the National Prospects for scholarship. And a lot of these schools [inaudible] i dont know if it that is me or not. Its the nfl. We cant treat every division of us if it is the same masquerading as d3 schools saying there are no employees here. Notre dame i know that i would imagine they have students in the bookstores as employees. It doesnt seem to hurt their educational opportunity. Theres no congressional hearings about that. We are talking about equal rights into the industry is operating in a legal fashion that is breaking antitrust law and labor laws and now its coming home and players are getting avenues [inaudible] pulling leverage and here we are saying the sky is going to fall. I dont need to go over so much, mr. Chairman. We are talking about rights. But we are also talking about money. And it just seems to me that this controversy in part has been caused by a model of redistribution. And ive got a lot of sympathy for kids. The adults seemed to be able to take care of themselves, but its the kids that make all of this possible. Thank you mr. Chairman. Thanks, senator kennedy. I want to make clear before i introduce the next senator who happens to be the coauthor with me of the athletics statement theres no effort here to micromanage anything and i think that he made an excellent point that even though limited benefits go far to College Athletes that we see have come because of a fight, because of an effort on the part of kids that are here to treat athletes more fairly and nobodys been a stronger advocate than senator booker. Im pleased to call on him. He genuinely would have benefited from nil had it existd when he was playing football at stanford. We often joke i was a College Swimmer and theres no way anybody would have offered me a contract to do anything in nil but he was a genuine start. Can i respond and you make a valid point if im not denigrating anybodys efforts here. Im just suggesting that we do need to be careful once congress decides to get involved it really gets involved. I dont want to have congress and the business of trying to establish concussion protocols for each school because thats where it can lead to. Thats all im saying. Thanks for that point. Thank you very much. Youve been extraordinary in this area and im grateful to have you involved. Senator moran has been extraordinary as have been a number of colleagues ive worked with over the last decade. I want to think senator cantwell, the chairwoman of the Commerce Committee was done an extraordinary joe on these job e issues as well. This is about to the day the ten Year Anniversary of when i was elected to the United States senate and i came here with a lot of issues but this is one of them. I have this strange to thoughts about College Sports. One is that its one of the best parts of american culture. I literally wouldnt be sitting here today if it wasnt for the opportunities afforded to me as a Football Player in high school in college. Its one of the bright lights when america has so many forces dividing us and it unifies us in a way that is very special. The challenge i found ten years ago and the first Commerce Committee hearing on this i was angry because i also knew the dark side of College Sports and i knew too many of my friends whose bodies were beaten and battered who are going in their own pocket leader to try to pay for spinal cord injuries or shoulders, knees and god for bid i saw the challenges with cte, guys who were coming out that had head injuries, depression and a so many other symptoms that we now know are symptoms of cte but nobody there to help them or support them. More than this, i couldnt understand how we had a system that the guys that spend over 80 hours, 70 hours, 60 hours didnt graduate on time were going in their own pocket after their football career was over to pay for the last few credits that they had. I couldnt understand how low income kids who got the chance to play ball didnt have the money to even get their parents to come see them play with a jersey with their name on it was being sold in student bookstores for more money than their parents made in a full days labor. And what frustrated me at that time the ncaa was giving lip service to a lot of the changes but seemed to only move when they got embarrassed with her its being embarrassed like saying i couldnt afford to eat when he won the ncaa championship or the embarrassment of showing the differential treatment of women versus men in the ncaa tournaments. I am so glad that this group is here now because the folks here before us had been extraordinary in their leadership. I cannot think president baker enough for being willing to work with me and my team and what i think has been a very progressive leadership in bringing about change. Commissioner, you have been a great partner in trying to develop something that could be bipartisan and work to put common sense guardrails. Weve been working on this since you and i both had hair. And i cannot tell you how grateful i am for your leadership and advocacy and fighting for what most people watch sports think should be the norm that the men and women who contribute most to the 15 billiondollar industry should come at the very least, have basic standards for health, safety and justice when it comes to these issues and so im grateful to be here with folks that are constructive and trying to find a way number one to preserve College Sports, which is now being threatened in my opinion by a lot of the wild wild west, which has been mentioned, and i think you are correct. There was so much bipartisan places to land on this. The controversial stuff we could leave a site if we find a pathway forward and keep athletes centered at first. So im extraordinarily encouraged by the work of senator blumenthal, senator moran. The discussion documents we put out, the feedback has been so great. There is so much accord weve got to move forward and senator kennedys point not to have unintended consequences, but to again protect College Athletes. Just very quickly, i would like to turn to the one College Athlete that is actually here, ms. Thomas. Its extraordinary that you are here and i cant thank you enough for being here. You are playing and have played at a level that is just great. I dont think folks understand the physical demands and mental demands. You have seen personally the challenges that a lot of folks dont understand what athletes go through while trying to balance difficult schedules and i guess i just in the last seconds i have, why do you think it is so important that whatever we do we prioritize the health, safety, Mental Health, wellbeing of College Athletes, teammates and others . Could you express the urgency of the moment . Yes, being a student athlete is super difficult. Hours upon hours we are a student also and thats a lot already and then you are putting that we practice every single day we are doing something whether its conditioning or practice or training or letting our trainers work on our bodies for us. Its a lot. And of the traveling on top of that is a lot and competing in our sports. So, everything outside of that thats extra needs to be so that its taking care of us. Im obviously not a student athlete anymore technically but for all of my teammates and classmates that will come after me i want the best for them. I know how hard it is to be successful as a student athlete and we just need to make sure we are doing the best for them. Thank you. And again, tony, governor i am so grateful for the work we are doing and i think we can get someplace for this. I want to savor the record of notre dame has been one of the best partners weve had. Extraordinarily honorable and that is the only reason why in this hearing i am restraining from talking about my best career Football Game when notre dame was ranked number one and we went to south bend indiana and offset Sports Illustrated i think called it the best upset in College Sports that year. All sports except when Buster Douglas beat mike tyson but im not going to talk about that at all out of respect for your institution into gratitude for your partnership. Thank you for your restraint. [laughter] you should listen to senator booker when hes unrestrained. Thanks, senator booker and for all of your work. I second your thanks to senator moran as well as to senator cantwell and others on the committee who have been very thoughtful on this issue. Senator tillis. Thank you mr. Chairman and thank you all for being here. Governor baker, i think probably a year or two from now youre going to consider being a republican governor in a democratic state. One of the simpler jobs youve had it. Youve got a lot of work to get done. I already do, senator. I had a question. I think in your Opening Statement you said the ncaa has no duty to protect College Athletes. In about 30 seconds could you explain to me why in the lawsuit he died during a football practice into the family sued. The Legal Defense and public defenses have no legal duty to protect College Athletes and has kept that stance into every lawsuit in its defense. Governor baker, im going to ask you about that. Part of what we are talking about is the universities themselves have the primary responsibility for the health and safety of the student and it would seem to me even if you want to set aside of the humanitarian factors that you want every athlete to be healthy every day of the week during the best they can do to get the most people to watch that sport. It seems like there is an inherent not obligation, there is a human economic driver behind trying to protect these people so its difficult for me to have anybody viewed as youre running through the mail it just doesnt make sense to me. You want the best athletes on the field every saturday. And i am a football fan, basketball i guess every day of the week is harder for me to follow, too many of them, but i just want to express the notion that you would actually have somebody recruit a kid to st. Josephs and not care about their health and wellbeing. It seems like it would be in the forefront in my correct . That was the comment intent of my Opening Statement to say we are not waiting around for a rule nor do we feel like it is lacking. We do it for several reasons already. Proactively and if something does happen, our insurance and coverage it starts to attract people to the games and its that attraction that generates revenue and creates the economic cycle. First off, congratulations on your academics. How many times did you say i think the chairman said you got your career athletic . 28. 28. And i dont know if you are not comfortable just say youre not comfortable with this. Tell me a little bit about the income that you are receiving from your contracts right now. Im not comfortable answering that. I think its interesting. Id like to learn more and maybe you know. Ive read reports about a gymnast that i think her career was 9. 95. She is one of the most highly compensated people in nil right now. But ive also heard reports of people that are just making enough to where they can pay their college tuition. That they are finding ways through nil, they are student athletes, but they are not the big names that are actually making revenue. Is that a just anecdotal or are we seeing some sense that other people are finding this as a way to pay for their education and move on to something other than the collegiate sports that attracted them . Yes sir. Senator, i would tell you one of the things we are seeing at the ground level is athletes all being for social Economic Issues that are inevitable in their lives. Family related issues. Like i said, paying off student debt, flying their parents to come watch them play. Something athletes which then also gives them ability to stay in School Longer and pursue i think everybody here stipulated the support nil. That to me anybody in this meeting distracted from that i dont think has been paying attention. I do disagree with some of my colleagues who dont think, and i dont think i disagree with you, mr. Jones, that we dont need rules of the road. I think you said that this is the essence of interstate commerce. It was one of you and your testimony. I thought it was you. But i guess in my remaining time, several states weve implemented a patchwork. I think we have to eliminate that. I think we do have to create rules of the road. This is where it gets dangerous because congress has to get involved to get it right. So the question that i have, is there a National Model we should be instructed by or is there a given state or jurisdiction and i will let you answer this if you have the information thats done particularly well or we should be instructed by as we proceed down that path . Unfortunately, senator, i dont think theres examples to look to right now. Its been motivated by a bit of a race to the bottom for the recruiting purposes so thats been the challenge. If theres one thing we could do that would address the title ix issues and otherwise where the name common image, likeness and ideas have to relate if we could do that, the most wellknown basketball player in the country right now is from iowa and shes a woman. When its really of name, image and likeness, you have an equity thats achieved and it relates to the level of accomplishment and fame. Most teams theres a handful of men and women that have marketing deals. Yet in college everybody on the team has one. Its not a marketing deal. We need to get back to where they remain in the name, image, likeness and ideas. We are for regulation. We are not asking if there be transparency. We are fine if there is a National Preemption on the state statute we support that as well. We are for that and we are ready to work with any somebody that wants to regulate with the problem is nobody is. We support regulation and oversight. Theres a lot of things, the Employment Status. We are going to put you in that position. There will be a skeleton of an Athletic Program that you have today because the numbers dont work. They already dont work for you. Reaching the point there will be certain sports forgotten which begins the beginning of the end of their sports being relevant in every level of the semi pro level so thank you all for being here. Weve got work to do and i for one think we should. Senator klobuchar. Thank you very much. I want to thank you, senator blumenthal and booker for your work and i look forward to working with you on my positions in judiciary and commerce to get this done. I will try to show the same restraint as you did, senator booker. Its not as good but its pretty good and asking my first question to governor baker and noting that a given that hes from massachusetts where they play a lot of hockey the university of minnesota dilutes the men and womens hockey teams have collectively 111 double ncaa championships since 2001. Im not sure you can have that record in massachusetts. He harbored has won many will. Can you elaborate on how the new policies will help student athletes will come of the ones that you know in your written testimony about improving financial outcomes including areas of Financial Literacy, standard contract terms, agent registration . Sure. The policies that the council is working their way through should be voted on before the end of the year. But they are basically designed to create what i would describe as transparency and accountability. The Financial Literacy piece is something some schools already do and we would like to see everybody required to do that. The uniform standard contract is basically about doing exactly the same thing we do in almost every financial transaction industry in america which is to have a contract that represents basic terms. And if an agent wants to move off of that, they need to explain to the student athlete and the family why they want to move off of it. The third part is to create what i would describe as a system where a student athletes would make available to the schools what video looks like and then all the data would get the identified and incorporated into a public distribution so that if you were a gymnast, if you were a Football Player or basketball player, you would have some idea of what traditionally nil looks like for you or for somebody like you so you have some idea of what it is you should get and the final piece is to make sure that we have an agents registry where agents have to among other things say they work for their customer, their client because theres way too many examples at this point. How does the lack of uniform rules i think what, we have 31 state laws now that have emerged . How do those lack of rules but the states without nil laws like minnesota at a disadvantage because they cannot take advantage of state laws that prevent nil rules and are more permissive . Its promoting and the transfer advantage of the states were money can flow that is encouraging attendance and transfer of those that have not acted so far in different positions but it has been mentioned earlier a situation where we compete in one conference across many states. We want that to be somewhat balanced. Theres already enough we have different sized stadiums with different competitiveness and in this case we are seeing states increasingly keep ratcheting up with they are doing to try to improve the competitiveness so it starts at one place and the next state it keeps going in one direction. Does that make things more difficult for student athletes . Yes it makes things much more difficult and very confusing a lot of times. Okay. Another issue thats related. After 50 years of title ix our athletes shouldnt have to fight to get adequate pay. As you know, senator cantwell, in the Commerce Committee weve worked for equal pay for team usa athletes and now requires equal paying resources. How can we ensure they dont persist under a nil system . Because of the combination of whats already been mentioned. One is transparency and number two is getting back to legitimate nil deals where the actual capitalist market is paying in which case women will succeed at a greater level i believe than male athletes, but i think it comes down to getting rid of this it should be in impermissible market of paying athletes to attend institutions. Perspective . Thank you, senator. Thats number one. Since then, we were the first to install a chief medical officer and what we are trying to do is make sure members have the best resources that we are guarantying a safe environment for everybody involved. Thank you. I will ask on the record mr. Huma questions i had about the announcement on the long term and disability benefits which i will do later and defer to my colleagues. Thank you. Ink next is my fellow standard man. Josh hawley. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thanks to all of the witnesses for being here. I appreciate your comments abOpening Statement of attacks, terrorist attacks on the state of israel and need to condemn those for what they are. Let me ask you about statement that student groups of members said recently. Student at ohio state representative praised, quote, heroic, heroic resistance in gaza. Students at the university of North Carolina claim, quote, it is our moral obligation to be in solidarity with the dispossessed and this includes violence and students in new york university, peace must be rejected and said theres no peace. Colombia was forced to the close campus and numerous jewish students were threatened would you condemn violence and selltism in these campuses . I think its important and i say as much as a former governor as i say as current head of ncaa, for all of us whether we agree political to condemn. Theres never an excuse for unprovoked attack on innocent people. I, you know, i said many times and i said when i was a governor that we have gotten really casual about the way we think about violence in this country. And i said it through the summer of 2020 when we had horrible things that happened to members of our black community and the i think we have a cultural problem there as much as anything else, senator. I think its important for all sides of the political spectrum to call that stuff out. Good, i agree with you. Its important that ncaa are able to say it. You have Jewish American athletes. And Jewish American students. Indeed. That doesnt mean that we have to condone it and act as it is morally acceptable. Im going to ask senate to take a stand and condemn it as the violent antisemitic issue that it is. Earlier this year testimony from riley gains, she testified in march of 2022 in the National Championship where she was swimming she was forced to share a locker room with a biological male thomas. Let me read from her testimony. In addition to give up awards, titles and opportunities the ncaa forced me and fellow swimmers to share a locker room with thomas. Let me be clear, we were not forewarned, we were not asked for our consent and we, women, did not give our consent. Is that still ncaa policy . First of all, i wasnt going to defend what happened in 2022. I was governor of the common wealth. We have standards and safety and security of student athletes and anyone that host National Championships. And does that include female athletes having to share locker rooms with biological males not being warned or consent. Are they asked for their consent . I dont believe that policy would be the policy we would use today. Let me ask you this would you support athletes to unionize, to have Bargaining Power on system kind of an equal footing to deal with the ncaa whether its over safety issue like this one, name, image and likeness, compensation, should student athletes have the right to unionize and able to speak with an equal voice . I think the most important thing to remember here is that if student athletes were to unionize and we will have court cases on that. Im more likely than not to the not want to specifically to those. I do have concern of creating one brush of 19,000 team, all 1100 schools, all 500,000 athletes and say they should all be employees because i do believe in your state and in the state of every Single Person on this committee literally thousands of your inner scholastic programs will go away. I think thats a problem. Well, i appreciate your responses and your candor. I will say in conclusion, that i think we have to find some way to give the student athletes a voice and whether its the issues that ms. Gaines raised or nil or others. All three of Student Advisory Councils which are elected by their peers have expressed deep concerns about being considered to be employees and aye talked to probably a thousand student athletes since i got this job and i havent talked to one yet that wants to be an employee. I think thats important. Senator blackburn. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for being here as most of you know whether its the Commerce Committee or here at Judiciary Committee we have been focused on what we are going to do with the nil issue and how its going to affect student athletes like wise we have been concerned about men and women sports and what that does to student experience. Trinity, congratulations on your record. Im absolutely delight today have the opportunity to hear your perspective. Governor baker, no surprise to you, i want to come to you first. One of the things pardon me that we are looking at is the patch work of state laws and how that affects is many different processes with the recruiting process dealing with nil, different approaches, different types of collectives. So as you look at this patch work knowing that its going to impact schools differently whether it is saint joe or whoever. Talk for a moment about how you are going to clean this up and what is your timeline for delivering it . Your predecessor never could give us date, time and place that something was going to happen. Give me a timeline, give me a way forward. I think every university, theres a thousand schools in this country that you all cover and they all want to know what is that process. So thank you very much, senator. With respect to student athlete transparency and access to information and Consumer Protections which is sort of how i think about it, those are in the process of being written up and i expect theyll be ratified before the end of the calendar year, okay. Those are going and the implementation would be at what point . It would be effective the beginning of next scholastic year, 2024. I would expect around march we would be dealing with issues around recruitment also effective august 24. Now the question then becomes, senator, those would be ratified and voted on by laws by the organization, by the ncaa and its membership but that doesnt mean in the Regulatory Environment everybody will comply with them. I fully expect at some point with men and women sports, when do you expect some specific guidance because you just responded to senator hawley that you didnt think the situation we willa thomas and riley gaines who by the way is a tennesseeian that the position would be the same. When would there be specificity on that . First of all, the rules around as i said before the rules around Transgender Athletes generally are more restrictive today than in 22. I can state that anybody is going to be forced in any situation that makes them uncomfortable. We make that in the guidance to anybody that posed in championships. Thank you, mr. Jones, if i can come to you, please. The collectives are something that we have looked at and, of course, as we know its been discussed today, 98 of College Athletes do not play prosports. Looking at nil issue and the need to prepare the 2 that do go onto the pros because we hear 78 of athletes end up in bankrupt. Talk a little bit about what the collective is doing. You said in your testimony that you dont help with recruitment, you jump in after the students are there. So how do you help prepare them for this . They didnt have as much guidance and they were trying to figure things out. I think collectives like everything has evolved over the last 12 months, senator, to a much more functional wellstaffed organization run by business professionals that provide resources and tools because at the end of the day originally collectives is writing a check to the athletes. Theres no doubt about that. So most collectives in the 25 and tca we stand united for we are transparent and have contracts on file with universities. Perception of selectives is outdated. We have evolved and we are giving athletes resources and tools so they are better prepared in Financial Literacy, being a taxpaying citizen, protecting value of name on social media and all those tools, the tools they are going to need whether they play professional sports or not and the majority will not and the tools that we are providing on the collectives of today are helping them prepare for that. Thank you, im turning it back over to the real chairman but i want to say next up is the deon sanders of the republican caucus, ted cruz. That may be the kindest introduction i have ever gotten in my life. I will say to the senator of new jersey that may play against him in his state. I apologize for that. Welcome to the members of this panel, thank you for testimony on this topic which i think is an exceptionally important topic. Cleaning sports are amazing. They are something that pulls us together. We are in a time where it seems we cant agree on what time of day it is, we are yelling and fighting over everything and every week millions of americans come together and they chair for their schools and they stand unified and no one cares what race, what ethnicity, no one cares what Political Party they are, no one cares what religion they are, they stand together and they cheer and and thats important. I get enormous joy chairing for texas schools every week. And thats true all across the country. College athletics has also been an incredible avenue for millions of young men and millions of young women to get a great education. Young men and women who might not otherwise have an opportunity to go to college to have college paid for and to get all of the benefits of participating in organized sports, most college lates will never play proball, they are not going to be in the cover of wheatys becomes or get a nike contract but they are learning discipline and team work and sportsmanship and learning to be gracious winners and gracious losers. They are learning all sorts of skills that will help them everyday of their life. Im worried on the state of athletics right now. As each of the witnesses know i spent much of the past year visiting and listening to stakeholders, listening to the ncaa, listening to conferences, listening to universities, institutions, listening to the athletes and across the board im hearing real concern about the state of College Athletics right now, that it is a wild west and that there is a real risk that if congress doesnt act and act quickly that we risk doing enormous damage to a system thats providing benefit to millions of americans. Ive introduced draft legislation to address this issue. And the legislation takes a different approach than other pieces of legislation thats been bruised and lots of members of this body introduced legislation. Theres a lot of interest. I think its important, i think its right that athletes deserve to enjoy the fruit of their hard labors and if their skills are generating millions of dollars that are a massive economic power house its only right that young men and young women should enjoy significant fruits from their hard work and their performance but at the same time i dont think anyone wants to see a world where you have a few giant schools with all the money that bye all the top athletes and we destroy competitiveness across College Athletics. That makes it incredible fun to work. I think it is also important that we protect cleaning athletes across the board. Not just football, basketball, division 3 schools and nonrevenue sports that are really important but not going to produce millions of dollars beyond tv nationally. So i would like a question, do you believe is Important Congress act rather than 50 states having different standards . Do you think its important for congress to act, im going to ask yes or no . Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Okay. A second and difference the way my bill approaches it and other bills is that my bill empowers the ncaa to work with conferences, to work with universities to set the rules of the road. I think thats a better solution than the federal government stepping in either in existing Government Agency or brandnew Government Agency. I think nobody wants to see congress and politicians deciding what roughing the pasture is and bad things will happen if government takes over College Sports. Id like to ask everyone on the panel again to answer yes or no, not just yes or no but do you believe the ncaa should be setting the rules or do you believe the federal government should be setting the rules . Thats an easy for me. I will go with the ncaa. Ncaa. I dont have an opinion on that. Okay. The federal government by extension of establishing a third party. Okay. The del devil is in the details but the ncaa. The ncaa in compliance with federal laws. The ncaa especially if they figure out targeting. All right, last question. Theres a big debate over whether student athletes should be classified as employees or not. I believe that would be a serious mistake. It would subject scholarships to taxation, it would subject student athletes to all sorts of wage and hour regulations, it would mean suddenly you have a receiver that drops a bunch of passes, you can drop scholarship. Going down the panel, do you believe student athletes should be treated as employees . No. No. No. No. Mr. Chairman i would ask unanimous consent the enter into the record two different letters that i have here, one is a letter dated october 13th, 2023 from four historically black athletic conferences saying any legislative framework classifying student athletes as employees would have a staggering impact on Athletic Program and schools, Employment Model for College Sports is simply not the answer and secondly a letter from the chair Advisory Committee which represents nearly 190,000 student athletes noting that student lates should not be employees of their institution. Without objection, so or the. Thank you, mr. Chair. Appreciate yall participating today and i have heard that this question of whether there should be a National Standard versus state by state standard, we visited and i just want to register my position on that. I agree that ideally there will be a National Standard but only if its done right and not in it undermines or compromises any protections or gains that have been made at different in different states and i speak from experience. When i served in the California Legislature we worked hard to pass the nations first ever student athlete bill of rights. We havent gone through all of the debates of student athletes versus athlete students but that maybe is a discussion for another day. I want to make a point here for the record while the ncaa has reported that 90 of Division One Athletes graduated within six years in 2022, the statistic fails to include late transfers who do not reenroll. Theres other concerns about the methodology, bottom line statistics from ncaa are inaccurate and misleading. Using standard, as we have this important conversation today, i want to make sure that the billions of dollars in profit that is made off of the work, sacrifice of student athlete and collegiate is pursue college degree. Again, we intentionally call the student athletes not athlete students. The student part comes first. Not just the name. What protections exist today . Thank you for all the work youve done in the past in california setting a great example of what states can do. First and foremost if you look at the surveys and across all sports athletes reported 50 hours a week in a sport alone. 50 hours on top of fulltime school. Without enforcement, its not going to happen. Would trigger requirements for additional support, whether its tutoring, or anything else if we are genuine and sincere and we call them student athletes or athlete students. I know my time is brief but i wanted to ask a followup question in addition to academic support, the Mental Health needs stress is real and thats been under, you know, programs to date, conference structures to date. I can imagine all the time away from home and family, et cetera. What recommendations do you have for better supporting students in that capacity . Well, i think first, if you address some of the root problems, you know, making sure injuries are taken care of theres a lot of athletes that are broken because they have been betrayed by the universities. Many schools do it right and many dont. Coaches are forcing players back before they are ready. 20 report returning without medical clearance. They are breaking kids and preparations are well underway to ensure success of team usa we must address remaining barriers to participation by our student athletes and testimony that programs have a significant pipeline for team usa. Are there nay remaining barriers for student athletes who are also olympic athletes and whether its stipends or endorsing products within the games, some of the rules that are entertained state by state are here federally impact the conversation. What i think i would like to do, senator, get back to you in writing. Thats an important question with a lot of detail and i dont want to get it wrong. Okay, i will get you an answer in writing. Thank you very much. Thank you, senator padilla. A few minutes ago my colleague senator hawley asked you a couple of questions related to riley gaines. She testified in front of this committee at another hearing how ncaa discriminated her and required to share changing facilities with that same biologically male athlete. Another female swimmer, kylie longs was so uncomfortable being required without advanced notice to share changing facilities with a biologically male she changed in closet instead. I understand that and i look forward to those sorts of things not happening but i think its relevant for us to ask what have they done about those. Have you apologized to female athletes and any others similarly situated for the trauma that was inflicted on them by decisions of ncaa . Im not going to speak or defend what happened in 2022. Thats not my question. I dont know, im assuming youre asking you, the ncaa. I dont know the answer to that question. I will have to get back to you. Tell me what restrictions, policies have you put in place to allow prevent these sorts of things from happening in the future . I can tell you the standards with respect to participation for transathletes and women sports have been adjusted since then and continue to be adjusted based on conversations with other governing bodies and, again, im happy to put that to you in writing which i think it would be helple. Thatll be great. Separate from the issue of competing, what about changing facilities . Do you have policies that you have adopted since then that address that particular issue . Is there a means by which a female student athletes are allowed number one to know in advance of when they might be required to share changing facilities with a biologically male athlete and number two notifying, you have policies and procedures to allow them to make alternative arrangements. The policy for safety and security of student athletes participating is pretty exclusive making clear that student athletes should not be pushed in difficult situations. As former student athlete when you played for my colleague coach tuberville you werent allowed to receive compensation. Players now are allowed to profit, you mentioned likens, great benefits for the student athlete and some students to remain in college longer and pursue degrees instead of leaving early to go play in the pros. The university of Football Team recently arranged for their players to get leases on trucks, all of them driving the same truck which i know a lot of them enjoy. Can you speak to the role that collectives play in nil and their rule Going Forward . Yeah, thank you senator for your question. What may have been started as an organization to write a check or compensate athlete has turned into a resource that provides tools, transparency and area that didnt have any. They are trying to navigate. Sometimes its overwhelming to make sure that they dont do anything that would preclude, inhibit eligibility and we have taken the approach but the other collectives in our association about trying to make this about development of the student late. When somebody pays you the obligation that you are owed. All those things speak of making functional members of society when they leave our campus. We stand ready as ive said in my written testimony to have governance and oversight, to have a federal standard, we share ready to work with colleagues up here on the panel and where the government where necessary because senator, we are lucky enough that we deal with the athletes every day. We are in the trenches and we dont buy the negativity that you hear. Are there things that need addressing, absolutely. Overall the impact that nil has had in the health and wellbeing of student athletes has been overwhelmingly positive. We see that with the student athletes, we see them with maturity level and if we are doing our part we can provide really transparent and tangible detail to all the stakeholders to provide the necessary guidance and then make the most informed decisions Going Forward. I do think we are much more about development than we are just compensation from the last 12 months. Thank you, i appreciate that you and my friend do for student lates. Thank you, senator. I will have a few closing questions. Senator manchin. First senator blumenthal for allowing me to go in. Commissioner baker i think would be the appropriate term and to all of you. I know that you are here because you care as much as we do about student athlete. I think we are losing sight of the word student because basically allowing them to switch around as they can right now with portals and everything else, their chances of graduating is slim to none. Something has to be done. Here is what we have done, we have a piece of legislation, senator blumenthal have shared and myself with tommy tuberville. Weve put a bill together which is called the pass act. What we are trying to do put guardrails for boosters and collectives to make sure they are associated with the schools and in sync with the schools for the purpose of making coordination. We just dont believe it should be auctioned off. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship they still kept me. They didnt have to. If i got a division 1 scholarship in one of major sports they are committed for keeping me for four years. The bottom line is im not committed to stay. Oh, no, im sorry. Thats not what developing Young Athletes is about. They are going to have to be structured somewhere. We are putting guardrails on that. After that, go anywhere you want to. Theres still theware provision. Ive spoken to commissioner baker about all these things. Providing transparency, clarifying the nil activities which i just talked about, providing additional protection for student athletes. The bottom line is they should our main goal is to get them an education, get them a skill set. Theres 2 that go to nfl, nba, they would love to do. We all have the grander dreams and doesnt work out always. Thats the most important thing. The other thing i dont know if youve considered that the most student athletes are receiving pell grant. That means that the federal government is paying through pell grant for most highest value part, basically the money that comes in through the large sports programs. And that doesnt seem fair to me. All these schools have other students that need pell grant badly but theres no value within the system that would pay for those students. I dont think anyone intended that to happen. Its been brought to my attention that something has to be corrected too. Enforcing oversight also health and safety, you are bill basically says you will take care of student athlete 8 years after they finish their curriculum or graduate and that means it has to be a sport related injury to the sport they play. They probably we are trying to make sure they have the full value of having a quality of a healthy education and have a healthy life to provide for themselves and their family but also the experience of being a student late. They are coming in as professionals now. I would have paid to let me play. The love of the sport still has to be there. If its all about chasing the dollar from when youre on pop teams and your parents are pushing you, thats not what it is designed to be. So if they are that good, go from high school to the pros. Dont come through the system and basically have an Automobile Accident bid. It doesnt thats not what it was intended. So, ive got a lot of problems. I really do with this seeing it up close and personal. Seeing young men and women who have made tremendous contributions to society not through athletics after they finished Scholarship Program they had, they did it because they developed young people who were matured to share their value. Thats been tremendous. When we used to go to school we used to get ticket and get money for laundry. We can live on 30 a month in the 60s. Man, thats a bonus. I didnt expect that. And then so and so classmates and my ball players. Their own parents couldnt afford to watch them play and if one try to pay, it was a violation. Crazy. I would say how come your mom is not here, my grandma cant afford it. Guys, you have to help us if not we are going to lose one of the greatest past times weve ever had, no matter where we went to school or played or not, youre still there, still part of you and youre rooting for the system as youre rooting for the kids. Senator blumenthal has been so kind. We have same concerns but opinion how it can be done. You help we can make changes. Mr. Baker, my friend, you can put basically common sense into this thing. Im hoping all of us can Work Together. Take the politics out, its hard to do that anywhere, take the politics out and look at the purpose, the student athlete should are the best experience in their life to be give something back. 98 can do that. 2 will make the fortune in the arena so thank you. Thanks, senator manchin. I have a few closing questions which id like to pose to the panel as a whole. Some of you may be aware that International Students are treated differently than american citizens who are College Athletes. Ive raised the issue of foreign student athletes being able to benefit with nil, actually secretary mayorkas, the visa system puts those athletes at risk of losing their legal status here if they earn any nil money in my view this kind of discrimination is deeply unfair to them and outdated, for example, International Students like odama sonogo, star in the ukon husky Basketball Team and a significant part of our victory last year is totally unable to earn any nil benefits despite court. Discipline and determination are equally deserving of monetary reward in my opinion. Let me ask the panel as a whole maybe beginning with governor baker, would you support changes in our laws and regulation permit those International Students who may not be citizens to benefit from their nil status without fear of losing their visas or other . Absolutely. Absolutely, yes. Yes. Yes. Yes and we actually do contract with International Student athletes. Yes. Yes. And just to be clear, mr. Jones, its not a question of whether schools would be willing to let them or sponsors would be willing to pay them, its their status if they accept such payment under our current visa laws, thats what we need to change so thank you for helping them but they are still at risk of losing their legal status . Yes, i agree. We havent talked much about enforcement, former prosecutor, most of my career has been spent in Law Enforcement and whatever standards are adopted, whatever reforms are enacted, they will be meaningless unless they are enforced. The bill draft bill that senator booker and i and senator morna have written would establish a federally chartered College Athletics corporation. Id like to ask all of you again whether you think the enforcer is important and whether you have specific views on who should be doing it. Governor baker . A couple of things. One is i think thats a conversation we have had and im happy to continue to have. I do have some concerns of details. We should talk about that a little. Ive had some interesting experiencing with ags since ive got the problem. And before probably too. Before too. Well, i would welcome continuing our conversation about it. Mr. Patitti . I would need more about the structure to have a strong opinion. Initially more incline to see if we can figure out a way for nca would do this. I would also need more information to have an opinion. Mr. Homa . Its important that enforcement be conducted by an entity independent of colleges and ncaa. I believe the industry wants enforcement when it comes to policing, could be the same entity like health and safety and protect College Athletes. We are certainly open to oversight and governance for sure. Im worried of lack of enforcement on state laws such as nil laws an laws that exist right now. Im not sure the states have been active in enforcing those. I think increasing the effectiveness of enforcement is a critical area that has to be addressed. Im not sure i dont have enough detail to respond to that proposal. Well, i thank you all for your willingness to talk but let me just emphasize the real test here is going to be whether the rules are enforced. Best rules are dead letter unless they are enforced. Im certainly more than happy to hear from you about how the enforcement should be done but in my view independent effective well resourced and interpretation forral for intenl enforcement is key to making this whole system work not just on nil but on health and safety, on scholarships, on medical trust fund, on all the good things that weve agreed are important and if we are heading now toward the wild, wild west and dangerous chaos with a patch work of different measures, National Standard on any of these issues will depend on enforceability and, in fact, someone willing to take the reins and we know they dont have resources to do to court and theres psychological pressure to take it. Suck it up, do with the program. State enforcement so far has been lacking, so i would not rely exclusively on state enforcement whether its by attorneys general or anyone else and i would not rely exclusively on federal agency. I would allow the athletes themselves to do to court but i think there has to be some enforcing agency here or entity. Obviously we are talking about a cleaning athletes corporation which is not the ftc or an existing Government Agency but im open to considering one of those Enforcement Mechanisms as well. I think the other area that governor baker has rightly emphasized it is transparency. We need prompt full accurate disclosure here and i think that message has come across from this panel very compellingly and forcibly and i think it is a fact of life that a lot of these very relevant issues need more sunlight more disclosure and transparency and i thank you for your willingness to work on that. You commented eloquently. The panel has seemingly has said no the employee classification except for mr. Huma and i would like to just ask you to maybe elaborate on the exception that you would make to barring employee status. Sure, that would be to really look at equal rights under the law but we know we are not talking about high school athletes, top football and basketball and the discussion is happening. Athletes are generating much more revenue that they are receiving in terms of fair pay, theres a lack of workplace protections as well and also to senator hawleys point the ability to eventually have some real say and collectively bargain with an industry that is hostile. We are talking about people are discussing closing the door on the employee status without paying fairly. It hasnt come up in the hearing. Thats one of the pivotal points and issue put to the side because i dont think congress will pay College Athletes and i dont think education would ban a lot of issues we can come to agreement on but that issue is not one of them. Only for some sports and some schools . Correct. And what the athlete didnt want to be an employee . Theres throughout our conversations in all the different states athletes from the committees or colleges committees that bowled say, hey, i would rather not have an nil, that would divert money from my school. You have to take it you have to understand that the athletes they may truly have a difference of opinion but it shouldnt negate the entire nation, you know, rights and progress. What is equal rights under the law. I dont think that congress should be creating special status is what i heard but secondclass citizenship. When you carve out players from rights, thats a big issue and we oppose that. I think we will continue to talk about this issue and im certainly sympathetic to collective bargaining. Im champion for unions and the vital role they play in employment setting and id like to continue this conversation with you. I think one of the objectives here is to guaranty fairness and protection to athletes in all schools and all sports and perhaps that kind of exception makes sense for some cleanings and some sports but i think the line drawn maybe difficult to do but we can continue this conversation. I am grateful to all of you for being here today. Its been a remarkably productive and informative hearing each of you has brought a perspective that is singular and extraordinarily significant and i want to thank all of you. I think that one point that comes across loud and clear is that the present system isnt working. It is broken and the corrective action taken so far is commendable but so far inadequate and that congress has to do its job to protect student athletes. Thank you all for being here today. The record will remain open for one week for questions that may be submitted or any additional comments and we welcome them that you want to add in writing and with that, the hearing is closed. Cspan washington journal, live forum inviting hosted by ths institution for a little over an hour