EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., a former college football coach, took aim at the growing influence of money in college sports amid increasing name, image and likeness (NIL) payments for student athletes and the conference realignment between some of the top college athletic programs for better TV deals.
Speaking to Fox News Digital as the new college football season begins, Tuberville announced a bill he and West Virginia Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin recently announced that he would overhaul college athletics and create a national standard for the NIL. But Tuberville warned that continuing down the path of shaping the industry around maximizing profits for programs and individuals could ultimately “destroy” college sports.
“I’m fine with it. I think it’s good that the players are making money off their name, but it’s gotten out of hand,” Tuberville told Fox. “Right now it’s a Wild West. It’s out of control. Money is flying everywhere. Some players get their money, some players don’t. There’s no oversight. So we’re trying to put some oversight here.”
Tuberville, who has served as head football coach at several schools, including Auburn University, and Manchin, a former West Virginia University football player, introduced the Protecting Athletes, Schools and Sports Act, or PASS Act, in July, two years after the US Supreme court ruled that the NCAA illegally restricted the education-based benefits that could be used to compensate student athletes.
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Republican Alabama Senator and former college football coach Tommy Tuberville. (Office of Senator Tommy Tuberville)
In response to that decision, the NCAA Division I Board of Directors enacted an “interim” policy suspending its NIL compensation rules until the NCAA adopts new rules or Congress passes legislation.
“All the coaches and administrators started coming to me because they knew I knew a little bit about college sports, and they asked me to get involved. They were very concerned about the future and the direction the NIL was taking. it’s in college athletes and college sports,” Tuberville said.
To be paid set rules for collectives and boosters, protect student athletes, maintain fair competition between schools and states, require collectives and boosters to be affiliated with a college or school, prohibit inducements and prohibit certain NIL agreements, such as those that “involve alcohol, drugs, or conflict with existing school and conference licenses,” and give the NCAA authority to oversee and investigate those NIL activity.
It would also make changes to the transfer portal, which requires student-athletes to complete their first three years of academic eligibility before they are allowed to transfer without penalty, with some exceptions, and -mandates that four-year institutions provide health care coverage to student athletes, including insurance to uninsured athletes for eight years after they graduate.
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Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) questions Securities and Exchange Commission Chairmain Gary Gensler as Gensler testifies before the Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee on July 19, 2023 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Tuberville said that in the process of drafting the bill, he and Manchin met with school administrators, coaches, players, parents, collectives and anyone else who might be involved in the system, and came up with “basic principles” that he said will be the bases for all 50 states to move in the same direction to NIL regulation.
He emphasized the importance of making sure student athletes have access to health care, as well as managing the financial stress for some players trying to take advantage of the transfer portal that allows them to transfer. of the school once in four years without hesitation from the NCAA.
“It became a bidding war, to be honest with you,” Tuberville said of the portal. “Players are getting involved with agents and lawyers and accountants and trying to make more money instead of, number one, getting an education, and number two, getting a lifetime of experience.”
He added that the bill is intended to give coaches, athletes, administrators and the NCAA what they need to manage the process, and to help prevent a “total disaster in the next few years,” which he warned which could lead to a lack of funding for Olympic and women’s sports.
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Auburn University Head Football Coach Tommy Tuberville takes the field at Jordan-Hare stadium in Auburn, Alabama. (Todd Van Emst)
“They don’t bring in a lot of money. They kind of live off football, college football and the money it brings in, with TV,” Tuberville said. “We’re not trying to invent the wheel here. We’re trying to give them some starting point where the NCAA can jump in and get involved in this.”
Tuberville went on to emphasize the need for separation between NIL compensation for performance, and coaches using it as a recruiting tool to attract high school athletes to their programs, a something she said negatively affects female athletes.
“Very few women athletes are benefiting from this NIL. Just a few. There are more men athletes. So, what we’re trying to do is we’re trying to make sure that recruiting, number one, stays out of the NIL This [Supreme Court] The decision has nothing to do with some states, for example, going out and offering money to ninth and 10th graders to sign with their school two or three years after they graduate. It has nothing to do with it,” he said.
“As [Coach Lane] Kiffin said from Ole Miss, this is legalized cheating,” he added. “Now, again, I am all for athletes making money, but we’re trying to make sure that we do it the right way to where the athletes — and not just one or two — many of them benefit from it: Men and women, Olympic sports, women’s sports, basketball, baseball, softball, it’s no different.”
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Then-Auburn University Head Football Coach Tommy Tuberville coaching at Jordan-Hare stadium in Auburn, Alabama. (Todd Van Emst)
When asked about conference realignments that continue to transcend geographic regions in what many have warned could harm student-athletes and their quality of life and education, Tuberville said it comes down to one thing: “Follow the money.”
“That’s what’s happening here with these universities coming from almost from the West Coast trying to compete against the East Coast teams because they don’t really have anything going for them when it comes to TV because most of the people on the East Coast really love college sports are in bed,” he said, referring to schools like USC and UCLA that plan to leave the PAC-12 in the West and join the Big 10, which is made up of schools mainly in the Midwest and Northeast.
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“College sports should be all about education first, and college sports second, and making sure everyone has a great experience,” he said. “They’re all trying to make money because money drives everything. As we all know, television drives money. I just hope they don’t destroy the golden goose that helps all sports and not just look at one . or two sports.”
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo contributed to this report.
