TALLAHASSEE \u2014 Legislators could be asked to impose a \u201ccommercially reasonable\u201d registration fee on athletic agents as state university leaders seek changes to address the rapidly evolving landscape of college sports.<\/p>\n
The State University System Board of Governors on Thursday accepted a statement and list of recommendations from its task force on intercollegiate athletics that calls on Congress to pass an antitrust exemption for the NCAA to establish a salary cap, along with transfer and eligibility regulations on athletic programs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to stay flexible, because these things are going to change all of the time,\u201d said Governor Ken Jones, the task force chairman, during the board\u2019s meeting at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers. \u201cUnfortunately, I think this whole issue is going to ultimately be decided by the courts. Every one of these things is going to end up in a lawsuit.\u201d<\/p>\n
The statement approved by the board cites the importance of intercollegiate athletics as a \u201cfront door\u201d to educational institutions, boosting their reputations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not necessarily the front door of the university, but it\u2019s certainly visible from the front door, from a student experience, from an alumni experience,\u201d said Florida State University Trustees Chairman Peter Collins.<\/p>\n
The board itself is asked to consider requiring financial literacy training and advisors for student-athletes, along with establishing trusts for student-athletes to manage \u201cname, image and likeness\u201d earnings.<\/p>\n
Anticipating a lack of federal action, the recommendations ask the Florida Legislature to allow multi-state agreements on issues ranging from student pay and eligibility as well as increased financial immunities for the schools, athletic departments and the direct support organizations that manage intercollegiate athletic programs outside of direct state bureaucratic control.<\/p>\n
The recommendation also asks the board regulate agents for student-athletes, including by requiring a filing fee to register and be verified.<\/p>\n
When the board was asked to consider using the word \u201cminimal\u201d for the agent filing fee suggestion, Jones suggested \u201ccommercially reasonable\u201d because \u201cminimal sounds like it\u2019s a dollar.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s probably not going to be a dollar. But it\u2019s got to be something to prove that you\u2019re a real entity that can actually have corporate compliance and you\u2019re a valid registered agent,\u201d Jones said.<\/p>\n
The request to Congress would also include regulating sports agents and allowing conferences to pool broadcast rights.<\/p>\n
The proposal comes as Congress continues to waver on the Protect College Sports Act, which has been rewritten repeatedly over the past six months.<\/p>\n
U.S. Senate debate on voting to proceed to the bill is scheduled to begin between Sept. 15 and Sept. 23.<\/p>\n
Highlights of the federal bill include a limited antitrust exemption for the NCAA and conferences to enforce eligibility and transfer rules, a five-year eligibility window for athletes, a ban on professional athletes returning to play college sports, a one-time transfer exception, capping agent commissions at 5 percent, and setting the revenue share cap with athletes at $48.8 million. This cap includes the current $21.3 million base, $22.5 million for a retention pool, and $5 million for women\u2019s and non-revenue sports.<\/p>\n
Some of the details have irked school officials because the act caps conference membership at 19 teams and requires schools moving between conferences to spend five years as an independent.<\/p>\n
When the task force met in August at the University of Central Florida, it did not take up proposals to allow schools to increase fees on tickets, concessions, and sports betting, along with apparel and other branding deals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TALLAHASSEE \u2014 Legislators could be asked to impose a \u201ccommercially reasonable\u201d registration fee on athletic agents as state…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[41595,111,28,2530,30,29,3731,76046,110,3865],"class_list":["post-392751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-college-gridiron-365","tag-college-sports","tag-florida","tag-florida-gators","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-florida-state-seminoles","tag-social-sports","tag-sports","tag-ucf-knights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}