![]() If school and NCAA officials are smart, they’ll figure out a way to license the game by the time they finalize the rules early next year. ![]() EA Sports probably could make individual deals with every player on the two-deep of an FBS team - most would happily sign for a free copy of the game - but the restriction on showing the player in uniform would make any attempt at a game a non-starter. The company negotiates a blanket price with the NFL Players Association. ![]() That’s how EA Sports gets to use NFL players in Madden games. And because the schools are scared of the players operating as a bargaining unit, the current plan for the rules wouldn’t allow for group licensing. They would not allow players to be shown in their uniforms or anything bearing school marks. The way they plan to structure the rules would not allow for a resumption of the EA Sports “ NCAA Football” video game. To make matters worse, they missed the easiest layup they’ll ever get. They always make it seem as if they’re doing everyone a massive favor when they get forced to do something they should have been doing all along. That’s probably why it’s so difficult to praise these folks even when they make a positive change. If the COVID-19 shutdown causes the football season to get pushed into the spring, allowing players to make money - which must take effect before an about-to-be-signed Florida law takes effect on Jprobably would be presented by the schools as an act of mercy as they ask football players to play two full seasons in one calendar year. Every time the NCAA relents a little on its own hypocrisy, it is presented to us as a gift that the schools have decided to bestow upon the athletes instead of something the schools should have been allowing all along. He left out the part where every single one of those steps was forced by a federal court ruling or a public shaming or a state legislature. Instead, this is what Emmert said Wednesday: “It’s a natural extension, in my opinion, of the steps that the NCAA member schools have taken over the past years to constantly improve the college athlete experience as an integral part of higher education.” They could have said that bipartisan (at the state and federal level) hatred of their organization and of their rules boxed them in and left them no choice. They could have said that they agreed to change the rules because a group of passed or soon-to-be-passed state laws will render some of their old rules illegal. NCAA president Mark Emmert or Ohio State president Michael Drake or Big East commissioner Val Ackerman could have just come out and said that amateurism isn’t some bedrock principle but a word that has maintained a conveniently flexible meaning that the people who run college sports get to use as they see fit. It would be nice if, for once, the NCAA and schools simply would acknowledge that mounting public and government pressure forced the lords of college sports to once again move the goalposts on the definition of amateurism. This is all quite wonderful.īut this is the NCAA, and nothing involving the NCAA can ever be that easy. Previously unreasonable people have decided to use common sense and take a giant step toward the right thing. People the market deems valuable will be allowed to make money they should have been allowed to make long ago. A set of tyrannical rules is getting loosened.
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