College athletes can soon get paid for endorsements. Here’s how it will affect Cal Poly

Just weeks after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Fair Pay to Play Act this fall, the NCAA voted unanimously to permit college athletes to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness.

The California law — Senate Bill 206 — similarly allows for players to be compensated for their name, image and likeness.

However, the similarities stop there.

Senate Bill 206, which is slated to take effect by 2023, prevents schools from taking away scholarships for those who pursue endorsements. They can also hire agents to help them secure deals at the local and national level — both points that the NCAA failed to touch upon in its statement.

The two actions came after decades of debate about whether amateur collegiate athletes should be able to benefit financially from their performance, which can generate millions of dollars in revenue for top universities.

For college sports, the NCAA’s announcement signals a major change, one that could go into effect as early as January 2021. Contrasted by the free market plans laid out by Newsom, it is still unclear how much student athletes could benefit, and the language used by the NCAA was murky at best.

Either way, though, a new era is coming to college athletics across the nation. What will it mean for student-athletes at Cal Poly, the most expensive school in the CSU system and one with stringent academic standards?

How Cal Poly athletes could be affected

In Cal Poly’s case, it’s highly unlikely that a student-athlete would be the face of a national brand, but there are plenty of small businesses, restaurants or potential youth camps in the area that might provide paid opportunities for standout college sports stars.

For men’s basketball head coach John Smith, the reform should have happened long ago.

“I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s long overdue,” said Smith, who is in his first season at Cal Poly, adding that he thought the threats of exclusion by the NCAA to California schools following the passage of Senate Bill 206 were baseless.

“You’re going to tell me you’re going to cut out UCLA, USC, San Diego State, Cal Poly from the NCAA Tournament?” Smith said. “They don’t want that.”

The former UNLV and Dominican University product has a unique view of the situation as a former player, current coach and father to two active collegiate athletes, Cal Poly guard Jamal, and Kianna, a Louisville guard and 2017 McDonald’s All-American.

Smith said he believes that the UNLV basketball team raised $3.3 million between television appearances and the NCAA Tournament during his time at the school from 1987-89.

The Runnin’ Rebels had become a national sensation in the prime of famed head coach Jerry Tarkanian’s career beginning in the early ’80s. They were consistently one of the most exciting teams in the nation, playing a brand of basketball that was both high-paced and high-scoring, combined with stifling defense.

During Smith’s time at the school, UNLV was in the midst of nine straight NCAA Tournament appearances which eventually culminated in a national championship in 1990. The Rebels were mentioned in the same breath as elite basketball powerhouses Duke, Michigan and North Carolina.

But inquiries from the NCAA regarding boosters and recruiting violations followed Tarkanian from his former school, Long Beach State, to the Nevada desert.

It ultimately led to UNLV being banned from television and postseason play for the 1991-92 season — and the departure of Tarkanian. Regardless of illicit booster payments or not, millions of dollars raised by the teams for the school from their television and tournament appearances never reached the players.

“We didn’t see any of it,” Smith said. “Greg Anthony, my teammate, had to give up his scholarship so he could start his T-shirt company.”

Anthony went on to have a 12-year NBA career, but the majority of players in the NCAA won’t be pros — a reality that certainly applies to Cal Poly.

Cashing in when they can

For many athletes, the collegiate level is where they’re at their highest marketability.

Cal Poly’s volleyball team has 17 NCAA Tournament appearances in program history as interest in college volleyball only continues to grow nationwide. Over a million viewers tuned into the national championships coverage in 2017, and ESPN routinely picks up Cal Poly matches throughout the season.

But student-athletes often play sports without professional leagues, or if they do exist, they’re overseas. This is especially true for female athletes.

Taylor Nelson, a former Cal Poly All-American volleyball standout who won Big West Conference Player of the Year in 2017 and played for the U.S. Women’s Collegiate National Team, is one such example. Nelson has gone on to have a successful career in Slovakia but was unable to profit off of her athletic talent while in school.

Other players may not have the same opportunity to turn pro. And for some, their career ends before it ever truly begins.

Senior volleyball player Torrey Van Winden has dreams of playing beach volleyball professionally. Van Winden was First-Team All PAC-12 at UCLA, where she played for two seasons, before becoming the Big West Conference Player of the Year last season, averaging 5.07 kills per set — third in the nation.

Those dreams have been in jeopardy ever since she suffered a concussion in practice before Cal Poly’s first-round NCAA Tournament game last season.

The concussion wasn’t her first, but its effects have lingered. She missed every game of the regular season this year before a triumphant return to the court in the first round of the tournament against Georgia.

The threat of another concussion won’t be as great on the beach, but it remains to be seen if Van Winden will ever feel well enough — for long enough — to return to the sport for an extended period of time.

“That is probably the hardest thing in all of this is: at any level, in any sport, there are these kids that could potentially go and make a careers with their athletic ability,” Cal Poly women’s volleyball head coach Caroline Walters said. “And what if, or when, something takes place at the collegiate level, what is the responsibility then, and how do you move forward to make sure that they’re able to still gain something?”

Walters believes that Cal Poly’s academic reputation will always be a selling point for recruits, a factor that has helped turn the volleyball program into a consistent Big West powerhouse over the past several seasons.

She said that, given the fan base that the program has helped build at Mott Athletics Center, she wouldn’t be surprised that when the name, image and likeness debate is resolved, players from the team will be approached for potential opportunities.

How the change could affect recruiting

The ability for student-athletes to make money on endorsements could also play a role in the college they choose to attend.

Walters fears that it will just give more advantages to the largest schools.

Top programs like Nebraska — which has sold out every regular season game since mid-2001 — or programs from the Big 10 will be able to dominate recruiting even more given their larger and hard-core followings, she said.

“It’s a recruiting thing that will affect the sport as a whole,” Walters said. “I think it will affect the top 1 through 15 in women’s volleyball (the most). We’re recruiting different kids than Nebraska, just because that’s the pool we get to choose from.

“While it will affect largely men’s basketball and football, I’d like to think that volleyball as a sport, we’re still going to have the opportunity to recruit the same type of kid that we’re recruiting right now.”

Smith, on the other hand, thinks the bill will help recruiting efforts because Cal Poly owns the advantage of being the only place to see D-1 athletes in the area.

“The benefit for us is that this is a college town,” Smith said. “We’re the pro team in town.”

And the same is true for every sport at Cal Poly. The chances for players to obtain any type of deal at a smaller school in a major market would be slim — if they got any at all.

Athletes at Smith’s previous school, Cal State Fullerton, would have to compete against all the other Division I schools in the greater Los Angeles area for opportunities.

And for for a school with the highest fees in the CSU system — not to mention a football team competing in the lower-level Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) — a change could be a welcome addition for student athletes with and without scholarships.

Cal Poly’s mandatory fees and tuition totaled $9,943 for a full-time student for the 2019-20 school year. The next highest is Sonoma State at $7,880, followed by Humboldt ($7,864) and San Jose ($7,852).

For now, however, both 2021 and 2023 are a long way away.

Few players currently enrolled would benefit from either timeline, and it is unclear what guidelines will be in place and when.

This story was originally published February 13, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "College athletes can soon get paid for endorsements. Here’s how it will affect Cal Poly."