Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Monday that he had signed a bill to allow California student athletes to make endorsement deals and hire agents, upending a bedrock principle that has governed college sports nationwide for decades.
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Our correspondent Alan Blinder broke the news, outlined the possible repercussions and spoke to Mr. Newsom about the law, which takes effect in 2023.
Here are excerpts from their conversation.
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Alan Blinder: You played a little bit of baseball at Santa Clara, right?
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Gavin Newsom: A little bit is the operative word, but it got me into college. I’m quite literally sitting here, in no small part, due to baseball. I had a pretty severe learning disability, dyslexia, struggled academically, and the only reason Santa Clara University would have ever accepted me was because I was a left-handed first baseman who could hit fairly well.
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So you’ve been thinking about the N.C.A.A. for decades. What do you make of it?
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I think it’s a pretty special thing when strangers start hugging each other because they share a moment of passion together in a world that’s so increasingly divided, and so sports are profoundly important from that perspective.
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But the N.C.A.A.? I’ve been left wanting a little bit.
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You’ve talked in the past about how student athletes in big-revenue sports have totally different experiences from other students. Do you worry that this approach could widen that gap?
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I don’t know if it could get more wide than right now. Give me a break. Give me a break that you can do anything more to separate the student experience for an athlete, especially in Division I sports, from the rest of the general population.
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Could this also widen the gap between the universities themselves?
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Look, the money has perverted the entire system. I mean, we professionalize college sports where we monetize the hell out of it. Coaches are making a fortune.
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The money has corrupted the system. The money is not being equally distributed to the talent, to the people that are performing, putting their minds and, quite literally, their bodies on the line to make millions and millions — hundreds of millions — of dollars for others. I think that’s unjust. And I think it lacks a tenet of capitalism. That, I think, persuaded the Republicans in our California Legislature to come on board.
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Will this add more money into the system or simply redistribute it?
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That’s the open question.
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None of us are naïve about unintended consequences. But the position is this: Unless we force their hand, they’re not going to reform. If we just let them do it voluntarily, they’ll come up with some window dressing — a nice thing here, a nice thing there — but they won’t fundamentally reform, and things will get worse before they get better for thousands and thousands of athletes and their families.
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The head football coach at Washington State, Mike Leach, argued that California’s leaders have “trouble keeping their streets clean right now, so my thought is they probably ought to focus on that.”
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He lost his moral authority with that. So, with respect, Coach, you want people to listen to you — which apparently is the business he’s in — consider your own words.
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He’s a guy who makes millions of dollars a year. His players make nothing. Only a handful of them ever go to the pros — a good percentage may have permanent injuries and gave everything they could for this coach for his living and for the boosters, alumni and for all of the marketing and for the brands. He just moves on to the next recruits, the next group.
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With all due respect, I’m not looking for a coach like this, in the position of privilege that he’s in, to tell us what to do as it relates to what we think is right for college athletes.
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The legislation says that the state might revisit this subject once the N.C.A.A. finishes its own recommendations, which are expected this month. How high of a priority should another look be for a Legislature that’s always busy?
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You can do many things at once.
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Are there any other areas of college sports you want California to look at regulating?
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This opens up plenty of space for all kinds of contrary points of view, and this is going to be tough enough to absorb systemically. So the answer is yes, but without me indulging even further, I think this is plenty for the system.
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