A bill in the California legislature that would create the opportunity for college athletes in the state to receive revenue-sharing payments from their schools will be delayed until 2024, one of the measure’s primary backers said Monday night.
National College Players Association executive director Ramogi Huma, whose California-based organization advocates on behalf of college athletes, said the bill’s sponsor, Assemblymember Chris Holden, has decided to make the proposal a two-year bill.
This will come as at least temporary relief to the NCAA and schools across the country. They fear that if California were to pass this bill into law, it would lead to similar measures being passed across the country, fundamentally changing college sports.
California’s legislature operates in two-year sessions that start in odd-numbered years. Under state law, if a bill has been introduced in the first year of a session, a member can choose to have its consideration continued into the second year.
Holden’s bill passed the Assembly on June 1. It has been scheduled to be heard and voted on by the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday. And the Senate Judiciary Committee had, on a contingent basis, placed the bill on its agenda for its hearings on July 11.
Monday night, however, the Education Committee agenda showed the bill as having been crossed off its Wednesday agenda. The 2023 deadline for bills to pass policy committees is July 14. Had the bill passed the Education and Judiciary committees, it still would have needed to pass the Senate Appropriations Committee after the summer recess to reach the floor of that chamber.
“The bill is still intact,” Huma said. “But this is a big bill … and I think Assemblymember Holden is just listening to opposition and considering proposed amendments.”
Holden could not be reached for immediate comment. Because each chamber of the legislature generally spends the first half of each calendar year considering bills that have been introduced by their own respective members, it is possible the Senate will not take up this bill again until June 2024.
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The NCAA and schools in California have been clear in their opposition to the bill. The association took an unusually early and forceful public stance in April. The Women’s Sports Foundation and a variety of U.S. national sport governing bodies, including USA Swimming and USA Track and Field, also have registered their opposition.
They have expressed concerns about the bill’s financial impact on schools and whether that would result in schools reducing funding for, and ultimately eventually seeking to eliminate, some low-revenue sports. They also have said the bill’s creation of an extensive regulatory, oversight and enforcement structure creates the prospect of micro-management of college sports by the legislature. The education committee’s staff analysis of the bill runs 41 pages long.
The bill comfortably passed two Assembly committees, including the Appropriations Committee, which Holden chairs. But on the Assembly floor, the bill received 42 votes in favor, one above the minimum required for passage, with 15 votes against and 23 members not voting. More than half of the members who did not vote are women who are Democrats, the same party as Holden. Holden said during floor debate that he had met a day earlier with the members of the California Legislative Women’s Caucus and had amended the bill in an effort to address concerns about the bill’s possible impact on women’s sports.
The actual legislative text of the changes was not immediately available on the day of the vote and did not become public until June 19.
Said Huma: “I think the (Senate Education Committee) hearing date coming up so quickly” was part of the reason Holden chose to delay further action on the measure.
