Recently, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), passed legislation which will enable student-athletes to profit off their likeness and image, an unprecedented victory for student-athletes competing for schools that participate in the NAIA.
The NAIA describes itself on its website as “a governing body of small athletics programs that are dedicated to character-driven intercollegiate athletics.” The NAIA has its roots in collegiate basketball where in 1937 it hosted the men’s basketball championships in Kansas City, Mo., a competition which saw Central Missouri State beat Morningside (Iowa) 35-24.
In an Oct. 6, press release, the NAIA explained that “the legislation, which is an amendment to existing language under the NAIA Amateur Code, allows a student-athlete to receive compensation for promoting any commercial product, enterprise, or for any public or media appearance.” Along with this, student-athletes can mention their participation in collegiate athletics in such instances.
Spurred by California’s Fair Pay to Play Act, which will allow student-athletes to earn money for their likeness and image in promotions in 2023, the NAIA’s plan will be the first of its kind to be implemented on an institutional level, according to the NAIA.
By enacting this overarching legislative proposal, the NAIA will not have to worry about various state discrepancies and will allow for a more cohesive standard across the conferences which compete in NAIA competition. For instance, “the WHAC conference has schools in Indiana, Ohio and Michigan. Three sets of rules could be applied within the WHAC: Michigan state law, Ohio state law and NAIA rules in Indiana,” according to the webpage.
It will also allow student-athletes to accumulate a greater sum of money which will help pay for their education. In an FAQ produced by the NAIA, it notes that “very few students receive a full ride, and even that does not cover all of a student’s expenses. Allowing NIL [name, image and likeness] compensation would give students more opportunity to try to close that gap.”
This legislation is a major victory for these athletes, and even considering the downsides provided by the NAIA, which include recruiting advantages and unequal opportunities across different sports, it will afford these athletes opportunities that their NCAA counterparts will not see. For example, athletes can now advertise paid sports lessons with images of themselves in their game uniforms.
However, one of the more interesting opportunities includes the monetization of their social media accounts, something some NCAA athletes have had to demonetize in order to remain eligible to compete in their respective sports (see YouTube accounts like The Athlete Special, a sub four-minute mile runner at Georgetown, who had to wait until he was out of eligibility to sell his merchandise, and the Youtuber, Deestroying, who had to give up playing college football at UCF as a kicker in order to maintain the monetization of his YouTube channel).
YouTube vlogging, and more specifically athlete vlogging, has become a staple to the website. Opening this medium as a way for these student-athletes to make money can have an enormous impact on these athletes and open YouTube to a greater variety of content creators who now have a new medium they can profit from.
Granted, as acknowledged by writer Gregory Mitchell from Mid-Major Madness, the reach an NAIA student-athlete may have certainly does not exceed, or come close to, an NCAA athlete’s reach. Thus, the NAIA athlete may not receive the same opportunities as former top Duke University men’s basketball player, Zion Williamson, if the NCAA allowed such luxuries.
Yet, the NAIA has paved the path that the NCAA should follow, and this is not the first time it has. In 1953, the NAIA became “the first collegiate athletics association to invite historically black institutions into membership,” according to their webpage. Moreover, it similarly became the first athletics association to sponsor women’s championships in 1980.
It appears that the NAIA could be considered a trailblazer in collegiate athletics, setting changes that the NCAA later follows. And while the adoption of legislation similar to the NAIA’s by the NCAA would significantly reduce NAIA athletes’ opportunities, it would still bring about a shift in the power and freedoms student athletes across the United States can wield.