from Chronicle of Higher Education
by Lauren Smith
A controversial proposal by the NCAA would broaden the way companies are allowed to use college athletes in advertising campaigns, giving athletics departments more opportunities to trade on players' popularity.
The proposal, which a panel of the National Collegiate Athletic Association will vote on in January, has attracted little attention because it was introduced as an amendment to existing NCAA rules.
Athletics officials backing the proposal say that they aren't seeking to exploit athletes, and that the changes would align outdated NCAA rules with today's technologies. Some players also support the amendment.
But critics say athletics departments are going too far, allowing sponsors to expand their reach without compensating players for the use of their likenesses in commercial promotions. While players would continue to earn nothing for the use of their likenesses, their colleges, conferences, or the NCAA could reap profits from the advertisers.
Any move to broaden the use of athletes' images in advertisements is "misguided," says Amy P. Perko, executive director of the Knight Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics.
In the past, the commission has opposed any attempt to allow more commercial endorsements in college sports. This month it plans to discuss the proposal at a meeting in Washington.
What's Permissible?
As it is now, companies are allowed to include pictures or images of college athletes in their advertisements as long as the athletes do not specifically endorse commercial ventures. In addition, companies are permitted to show only their corporate logos and names, not their products.
Under the proposed changes — which were introduced in June by the academics and eligibility cabinet, a powerful NCAA committee made up of athletics officials and faculty members — companies would be allowed to advertise their products and services in association with pictures or images of college athletes, as long as the players do not specifically endorse the products.
Making such changes would provide colleges, conferences, and the NCAA "greater flexibility in developing relationships with commercial entities that benefit the athletics program," the proposal says.
Some faculty members, lawyers for athletes, and college-sports watchdog groups say the plan undermines athletes' ability to be paid for advertisements in which they appear, and strips them of a say in how their likenesses are used.
"There is a little bit of disingenuousness in this," says Ellen J. Staurowsky, a professor and chair of the graduate program in the department of sport management and media at Ithaca College. Until players are compensated by the advertisers, she says, "these kinds of practices are problematic."
Marc Isenberg, an author who has written about the commercialization of college sports, says broadening the ability of companies to use athletes' images is a "slippery slope."
"The problem I see," he says, "is that student-athletes retain little if any control over the athletic department's use of their likenesses."
Just such a situation caused problems several years ago, he says, when MET-Rx, a nutrition company, sponsored players of the week at some Pacific-10 Conference institutions. Later some of the company's nutritional supplements were found to contain androstenedione, which is banned by the Food and Drug Administration because it poses health risks similar to those of steroids.
In 2005 the NCAA faced criticism for a Web promotion by Pontiac that posted pictures of new cars beside college-football video highlights. The ad allowed fans to vote for their favorite game-changing play and awarded $5,000 scholarship contributions to winning institutions.
Critics assailed the NCAA, saying it was using the players to sell cars. Despite the display of vehicles, the association declared the campaign a football promotion, and not a commercial promotion.
Misunderstood Intentions
That same year the NCAA considered broadening the rules governing the use of players' names and pictures, but the proposal was modified before it was adopted, marginalizing its effectiveness.
Two athletics officials who helped write the new proposal defend it vigorously, saying it is intended only to clarify NCAA rules introduced decades ago, when the Internet and other multimedia platforms did not exist.
Current rules about permissible commercial endorsements apply only to printed advertisements. The proposed change would give athletics departments guidance in dealing with evolving media such as streaming Internet and cellphone technologies, which provide new promotional opportunities.
Michael Rogers, faculty athletics representative at Baylor University and chairman of the NCAA's amateurism and agents subcommittee, says some people have misunderstood the proposal's intentions.
"There was some fear originally that it would allow a student-athlete to hold up a can of soda and say, Buy this, drink this," Mr. Rogers says. "That's not what we're doing."
Christine A. Plonsky, director of women's athletics at the University of Texas at Austin, emphasized that the proposal still protects athletes from commercial exploitation. "There are many, many ways that we can present messages where the company's message is definitely attached to the activity, but you're not asking a student-athlete to endorse or in any way back the actual product," she says.
Audiences are "sophisticated enough," she argues, "to know what they're being dealt in a commercial or a sponsorship message."
The NCAA's Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, made up of 31 athletes and former athletes from various conferences, supports the measure.
Kerry Kenny, a former basketball player at Lafayette College and the committee's vice chairman, served on a study group that examined how athletes' names and pictures should be used.
The group concluded that the current rules needed updating.
As long as athletes are portrayed in a positive light, Mr. Kenny says, "we were all for any legislation or direction the NCAA was going to take."
Some high-profile athletes also like the idea. Chris Lofton, a preseason all-American basketball player at the University of Tennessee, loves seeing his image broadcast and would have no problem being a part of a product advertisement.
"It's good for the school, it's good for the players, and good for the team," he says.
He just has one suggestion for the NCAA: If players' names and pictures are used, why not pay them?