Former Auburn Tigers football coach Tommy Tuberville really likes the concept of college athletes being compensated for their efforts.
But Tuberville, now a Republican senator from Alabama, said the NCAA’s current NIL policy allowing players to benefit from their name, image and likeness has many issues. The senator has been working since last summer with West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin to draft a bipartisan bill to reform NIL, which the NCAA instituted in July 2021.
The new rule has changed the sport. It changed how coaches recruit players to how they deal with unexpected transfers of their athletes.
Tuberville told National Journal’s Savannah Behrmann that there are a number of issues with the NIL policy. For starters, he believes the NIL should be expanded to benefit more student-athletes, not just the stars.
“SCOTUS says athletes can make money. I’m good with it; I was always good with that,” Tuberville said. “But I think all of ‘em should make money, not just a few, and that’s the problem with how NIL [is currently operating].”
Tuberville also said something should be done to address student-athletes transferring to another school, including, “what you can do, when you can leave, and for what reasons you can transfer.”
He believes the whole transfer issue needs work.
“[Athletes] plays a year, and then somebody that next year offers $525,000 at another school, and they jump and take that,” Tuberville told the National Journal. “The 30 hours [of credits] that they’re taking — most of it’s not going to transfer. So the likelihood of them graduating — that percentage really drops.”
Tuberville, who compiled a 159-99 overall coaching record at four colleges from 1995 through 2016, said he’s talked with former colleagues who say the current NIL guidelines have created chaos.
“I’ve talked to all my [coaching] buddies. They’ve never seen anything like it,” Tuberville said (via Sports Illustrated). “When you don’t have guidelines and direction, no matter what you are doing, you are lost. They are all lost right now.”
[Savannah Behrmann, National Journal]
