Can Cal Athletics Survive the Forthcoming Legal Matters?
A California bill and a lawsuit could make things dicey for Cal athletics, especially with the Pac-12’s uncertain status following the departure of UCLA and USC in the summer of 2024.
None of this will affect Cal and its 28 sports tomorrow, but in a few years, perhaps sooner, Cal might face some significant financial challenges if the bill is passed into law and/or the lawsuit succeeds.
The Bill
AB 252
If passed into law, which seems possible, this California bill would enforce revenue-sharing for California college athletes. We don’t know exactly what that would look like, but it would be costly and probably effect Title IX (and therefore women’s sports).
The status and impact of that bill are outlined effectively by Jon Wilner of the San Jose Mercury-News, with this excerpt:
Background: Assembly bill 252, the College Athlete Protection Act, is winding through the California legislature, the same body that produced the Fair Pay To Play Act (better known as name, image and likeness). Sponsored by Chris Holden, a former San Diego State baseball player who represents the 41st district, AB 252 aims to create a revenue-sharing relationship between the schools and athletes. The legislation has been amended from the original version — and could undergo additional changes — but is designed to funnel tens of millions of dollars in athletic department revenue into so-called degree completion funds for the athletes.
Status: AB 252 passed the assembly last week and is awaiting committee assignments in the senate. If it survives the upper chamber, the bill could land on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk later this year.
Impact: As law, AB 252 would make NIL look like amateur hour in terms of the ramifications for college sports. (While applicable to California schools, both public and private, it likely would spark similar laws in statehouses across the country.) If athletic departments are forced to redirect millions from their budgets to the athletes — much of it to football and men’s basketball players — then dozens of Olympic sports could be in jeopardy. For that reason, AB 252 carries significant Title IX concerns.
The fact that Gov. Newsom could sign the bill into law this year speaks to the immediacy of this issue.
The Lawsuit
The other issue is a class-action lawsuit brought on behalf of former Oklahoma State running back Chuba Hubbard, who is now in the NFL, and two other college athletes.
The suit was filed in the Northern District of California against the NCAA and the Power 5 conferences (Pac-12, Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12).
A Sports Illustrated story with the headline “NCAA Faces New Multimillion-Dollar Lawsuit” explains the suit and its implications, but includes this key sentence:
“The Hubbard lawsuit is the latest legal challenge threatening to further erode the NCAA’s bedrock of amateurism.”
If amateurism is on the way out, then schools like Cal will have to rethink their athletic goals.
A trial in this case could start in 2024, and it’s hard to say how long it might drag on.
The key excerpt from the Sports lllustrated report may be this:
The Hubbard-McCarrell case seeks triple damages on behalf of current and former Division I college athletics for injuries suffered from rules found to be unlawful in the Alston litigation. The NCAA lost the Alston case 9–0 in the Supreme Court, requiring the association to allow schools to distribute as much as $5,980 a year to athletes in education-related compensation. Since the June 2021 Supreme Court ruling, at least 50 programs are doling out the Alston funds to athletes, attorneys say.
Attorneys contend that at least 5,000 athletes are owed two years of back Alston payments from 2018–19 and ’19–20, but that number could climb to more than 20,000 athletes, putting damages at a minimum of $200 million and as much as $1 billion.
If the suit is successful, the NCAA, conferences and schools are going to have to pay out a lot of money. Plus it pushes college athletes closer to professionalism and is one of several similar lawsuits that challenge college amateurism.
This is on top of the NIL (name, image and likeness) allowances that are blurring the lines of amateurism, and comes at a time when the future of the Pac-12 (or Pac-10) is uncertain. We are still awaiting word on a new media-rights deal for the Pac-12, and whether the conference will try to add schools after the departure of USC and UCLA or attempt to survive as a 10-school conference. There have been reports that Colorado is considering a move to the Big 12, but nothing has been confirmed as far as movement or expansion.
This is a pivotal time for Cal athletics.
Cover photo by Michelle Pemberton, Indy Star, USA TODAY Network
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