The NCAA’s decision late last month to allow student-athletes to financially benefit from use of their names, images and likenesses, will dovetail with South Carolina’s new and similar law, the state’s attorney general said.
“This law provides guardrails to protect student-athletes so they can benefit financially without being taken advantage of,” Attorney General Alan Wilson said in a July 1 Twitter post.
In a separate statement the same day, Wilson referred to a letter he issued that certified NCAA’s action the previous day conforms with the state’s new law. That conformity “means the law goes into effect now instead of next year,” Wilson said.
“The legislation ensures fairness to our athletes, which is a very good thing,” he said in the statement. “The law should immediately go into effect.”
Wilson has been attorney general in South Carolina since he was elected to his first term in November 2010. He was elected to his third term in November 2018, and is seeing a fourth term in next year’s general elections.
Wilson’s comments followed the NCAA board of directors’ decision issued the previous day to approve an interim policy that suspends the amateurism rules, so student-athletes can financially benefit from use of their names, images and likenesses.
South Carolina’s law, Senate 685, signed by the Gov. Henry McMaster on May 6, allows companies not affiliated with a college or university to compensate student-athletes for use of their names, images or likenesses in any “non-athletic work product, or activities related to a business that the athlete own,” according to the bill.
The measure, which McMaster ceremonially signed last month at Clemson University’s Memorial Stadium, went into effect July 1.
“For too long, many college athletes have sacrificed their health to generate money for others,” McMaster wrote in his own Twitter post June 14. “Today, I signed S 685 to give college athletes more control over their talent and futures.”
The NCAA’s decision isn’t the end of the subject, the association said in its own announcement.
“This is an important day for college athletes since they all are now able to take advantage of name, image and likeness opportunities,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said in a June 30 news release. “With the variety of state laws adopted across the country, we will continue to work with Congress to develop a solution that will provide clarity on a national level. The current environment — both legal and legislative — prevents us from providing a more permanent solution and the level of detail student-athletes deserve.”
