Jay Obernolte: NIL Presents 'An Opportunity To Create A System Where Everybody Wins'

2 days ago

During a House Commerce Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Jay Obernolte (R-CA) spoke about the opportunities that NIL presents.

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Transcript

00:00Well thank you Mr. Chairman and thank you to our witnesses. This hearing is on a topic that is

00:05very important and deeply personal to me. Little known fact, I was a student-athlete

00:09many years ago when I was in college. I played on the Caltech football team,

00:13Go Beavers. When there was a Caltech football team, given the high quality and caliber of

00:20student-athletes at our witness table, you'd probably argue that doesn't count and maybe it

00:23doesn't. But then later in my life, I got into video game development and my company did the

00:31development of NCAA college football for EA Sports for a couple of years in 1998 and 1999.

00:37And I remember vividly having the argument of like, why can't we use the student-athletes' names

00:43in the game? You know, they told us that we could use your number, we could use your stats,

00:49we could make a player that looked vaguely like you but not too much like you. And I remember

00:54vividly saying, this is completely stupid because everybody loses, right? The student-athletes lose

00:59because they're not allowed to get compensated. We as game designers lose because we're not allowed

01:05to design a game around the athletes as we wanted to. The players in the game lose because they're

01:10not allowed to see the players that they love and recognize in the games that they bought. So

01:16we have an opportunity here to create a system where everybody wins, where student-athletes

01:23are allowed to play the game and the sports that they love, where colleges are allowed to benefit

01:29from having these sports, where millions of fans around the country are allowed to participate in

01:34these sports and root their teams on, right? So I guess my message is let's not mess it up because

01:40we need to create a system here where everybody wins. And if we create a system where someone

01:44loses, then we're not doing our jobs right. So one of the kind of recurring themes that

01:50has been in today's testimony has been around this question of whether or not student-athletes

01:57are employees. And I think it's really interesting because it fits into a larger debate that we're

02:03having here in Congress about whether or not when someone says, look, I don't want to be an employee

02:08and an entity says, I don't want to be an employer, does the federal government have the

02:13right to step in and say, you both lose, you know, you're going to be an employer, employer.

02:17And I think it's particularly compelling that I've heard our student-athletes say loud and clear

02:21today that they don't want to be treated as employees. So Ms. Cole, I know in your testimony

02:26you said that classifying athletes as employees is not the right answer. Can you talk a little

02:31bit about why you feel that way? Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for your question, Congressman.

02:38I mainly, as I touched on in my testimony, am just focused on continuing to promote and grow

02:46the equity with Olympic and women's sports as well. And I do believe that the employment model

02:52could make that extremely difficult. Mr. Whitman, you had said in your testimony that one of the

02:59things that you would like Congress to do is to clarify that the relationship between school and

03:04students is not that of employer and employee. Why do you think that that's not the right model?

03:12I think it's not the right model on a number of different levels. First and foremost,

03:16from the perspective of the student-athletes, it creates very real questions around the taxability

03:22of some of the benefits that they're already receiving as part of our system. I think it

03:26ultimately could result in less freedom for them in terms of the mobility to move from one school

03:30to the next. I think it ultimately could create less protections, I think, in terms of their

03:36status on the team, the opportunity to be cut or fired if they're not performing at a certain level.

03:42And ultimately, as we've heard from several witnesses today, the opportunity to lose roster

03:48spots across all the college athletics as a result of forcing schools to support this compensation.

03:54And importantly, they don't want to be employees. I've had the privilege the last 15 years of my

04:00career to work every day with student-athletes. I take a lot of pride in having a great relationship

04:05with them, of having an understanding of their experience on our campus and what we can do to

04:11improve upon it. Not once have I had a student-athlete come to me and say, Mr. Whitman, I'd really like to

04:15be an employee of this institution. I think we are developing a model through the house settlement

04:20that allows us to address many of their concerns. We're putting us in a position to provide them

04:25with additional compensation. We're in a position now to offer them more scholarships.

04:30We're doing things at the University of Illinois like providing continuing education after they've

04:35broken time with the university if they want to come back and complete their degrees. We offer

04:40enhanced medical care where our student-athletes are actually the beneficiaries of what I would

04:45call concierge medical service. They receive 24-7 care from independent medical authorities

04:53who provide care to our student-athletes independent of any oversight or supervision

04:58from coaches or administrators. Ultimately, they want a greater voice. I think that we're

05:04looking for ways to develop that through SAC, through some of the opportunities that we've

05:09given student-athletes to provide feedback on our campus, whether that's in the form of exit

05:15surveys, end-of-the-season interviews, and more informal conversations with administrators who

05:21are embedded with their programs. Ultimately, our student-athletes are the beneficiaries of a

05:26very robust system and opportunity. That system continues to need tweaking, but ultimately

05:33designating them as employees is not that answer. Well, thank you everyone for your testimony and

05:38just in conclusion, let me reinforce I think that there's a win-win-win here and I'm hoping

05:43that Congress can work together with the NCAA and the schools and the athletes to make that happen.

05:48I yield back. I agree. Thank you. The gentleman yields back. Now we have Ms. Clark. You're recognized.

Jay Obernolte: NIL Presents 'An Opportunity To Create A System Where Everybody Wins'

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