'Where Do You Think We Need To Go?': Darren Soto Presses Expert On Direction Of NIL Regulation

4 days ago

During a House Commerce Committee hearing prior to the congressional recess, Rep. Darren Soto (D-FL) spoke about the future of NIL legislation.

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Transcript

00:00You're recognized for five minutes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Coming from Florida,

00:04college football is about as popular as sunshine and low taxes, right?

00:10At the risk of alienating you a little bit, Mr. Chairman, I'm going to start out with an FSU

00:15story. So you recognize that Florida is the free state, is that right? Absolutely. So when I was

00:24in the state senate, FSU was heading towards a college championship, and a shocking story

00:30had happened. Jimaeus Winston, who was on his way to become a Heisman Trophy winner and lead his

00:35team to the championship, was accused and arrested of a small theft, and people thought,

00:42how could this possibly be happening? When you look further into it, you see this huge gap that

00:49happened back in the day between some of these star athletes versus the schools and the boosters

00:55and even a lot of the students, and that is one thing that name image likeness has helped balance

01:03out a little bit. We don't see some of these student athletes living in poverty while they're

01:10helping entertain millions of people. Of course, that is not uniform throughout, and we know that.

01:15I'm proud to represent Central Florida, Go Knights, Space U. We're going to work on the

01:21football program a little more, Mr. Chairman, much like what UF, we're all working on that stuff.

01:27But we see big programs getting bigger right now and smaller programs struggling,

01:32and that is a concern. More popular sports like football, men's and women's basketball are

01:38surging in national popularity and in resources, but other lesser known sports are suffering,

01:45and we need to recognize that. We're also home to EA Sports, which every college football player in

01:51the nation signed up and got a compensation for being able to lend their likeness, so that's

02:00something that we're really proud of in our area. But as was mentioned, we need rules of the road.

02:04We've had many hearings, but no bill passed into law just yet, and so we have work to do.

02:11Financial literacy, making sure that our student athletes have representation,

02:15safeguarding all NCAA sports, and potentially an independent players association. Mr. Falconelli,

02:24where do you think we need to go next on this? Is it a player vote? Is it an NCAA vote? Do we need

02:29a law on this? Where do you hope to go with this next? Yeah, the future we see for college athletics

02:36and for college football is a world in which we're not reliant upon a court ruling or legislation to

02:42really set what is going to happen next, but a world in which the athletes themselves are empowered

02:47to negotiate to shape their own futures. We firmly believe that that can be done through collective

02:52bargaining, and whether they are employees or not, we believe it is collective bargaining that

02:57is what matters. If athletes were made employees tomorrow, they would still face many of the same

03:02issues they are facing now and many more, and it's until they are organized and represented

03:06by independent players associations will they be able to actually enact the health and safety

03:10regulations they need or engage in the further revenue sharing and getting good deals on revenue

03:16sharing. I'd like to point out the EA deal for the NCAA video game is one of the only

03:22group licensing deals in sports to ever be signed where the athletes had no revenue share on the

03:27royalties from it, and were just given a $600 fee for one time for their appearance in the game or

03:34every year they re-up, but their name, image, and likeness is already guaranteed to continue to be

03:38used whether they re-up or not for the rest of their eligibility, and that game has gone on

03:45to probably cross over $700 million in revenue this year. It was the top selling sports video

03:50game of all time, and athletes have not been able to share in any of that revenue share. Well, we

03:55certainly believe in collective bargaining. I also want to turn to NIH briefly. We've been talking

04:00about NIL with the National Institute of Health. Student health is paramount. We've seen in Florida

04:07the chairman's own university created Gatorade because it was it's super hot to practice in

04:13Florida. We actually make Gatorade in the district, Mr. Chairman. I'm sure you're happy about that,

04:17but we've seen student-athletes pass away after conditioning, including unfortunately

04:22at our home university at UCF back in 2008. A lot of progress has been made since then,

04:28both there and in many other areas, and one of the NIH grants that UCF has is looking at digestive

04:34and kidney research. One of the biggest issues we see is dehydration, and then even if it doesn't

04:41happen at the time of a student-athlete, that dehydration can affect them going forward as they

04:46get older. Mr. Falconelli, how important is it for us to continue to look at hydration for

04:52student-athletes and have these NIH grants that are so important? Oh, it's absolutely important.

04:57As Ms. Cole testified to today, there can be traumatic effects with stuff that surrounds that,

05:02and as a former football player, hydration, brain damage, thousands of subconcussive blows

05:09every day or every year for five years straight, the research being done into health and safety

05:15and the issues that we're still trying to understand, like CTE, is incredibly important,

05:19and these are the things that we as athletes are going to carry forward for the rest of our lives.

05:23So whether or not we have the time to enroll in a STEM major and help be part of doing this

05:28research, we're going to be feeling the impacts of its loss for a long time. As many of us can

05:33attest to who are former athletes, after your career is done, your injuries are still there.

05:38You still wake up with pains, your knees, your back, your joints, your shoulders. That stays

05:43with you for life, so continuing to do important medical research is something that impacts all

05:47athletes. And we'll be fighting this Trump administration freeze and lawful restrictions

05:51to make sure we can continue to prioritize athlete health, and I yield back. Thank you.

05:56Thank you very much. Speaking of Gatorade,

'Where Do You Think We Need To Go?': Darren Soto Presses Expert On Direction Of NIL Regulation

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