WSU’s Gregg Marshall supports athletes profiting off their names: ‘This is America’
As the college basketball season approaches, debate continues on whether the NCAA should allow student-athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness.
Following Wichita State’s 92-57 exhibition victory on Tuesday, Shockers coach Gregg Marshall weighed in on the topic in favor of the California “Fair Pay for Play Act” that will take effect in 2023. The law will allow college athletes in California to get paid for the use of their name, image and likeness, as well as hire agents and seek out business deals.
“This is America, the last I checked. The United States of America,” Marshall said. “You should be able to profit off you, off your image and your likeness and pictures of you.”
Earlier on Tuesday, the NCAA announced that its 19-member group examining the issue had voted unanimously to permit college athletes “the opportunity to benefit from the use of their name, image and likeness in a manner consistent with the collegiate model.”
The news release seemed like a step in the right direction, but skeptics are stressing caution to congratulating the NCAA’s progress because of the vague nature of the phrase “consistent with the collegiate model.”
American Athletic Conference commissioner Mike Aresco told reporters earlier this month at the AAC basketball media day in Philadelphia that he thought the California law made “no sense.”
“There are some things you can do, but the main thing is this is an amateur undertaking,” Aresco said, according to the Connecticut Post. “If you don’t want to be part of it, you can go to the G League, you can play in the XFL. My feeling is the NCAA and the schools should have a right to run an amateur enterprise if they want.
“Once it becomes pro sports, I don’t think it’ll have the same popularity. People don’t need to see contract disputes and union issues.”
While Marshall was in support of the idea in theory, he did say he will be “interested to find out exactly how they plan to implement this new rule.”
“They’re going to have to handle it well,” Marshall said. “This is going to be a slippery slope because if they don’t handle it well, then it’s going to get crazy in terms of kids being promised ‘X’ amount of opportunities to earn money outside of their room, board, books, tuition, fees and the stipend that they get for cost of attendance. And then it will be used in recruiting and then they might not even need to go pro because they’re making so much money in college.”
Prominent coaches such as Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski and Connecticut women’s basketball coach Geno Auriemma have also come out in favor of the California law.
“It is a sign of the times that we in college athletics must continually adapt, albeit in a sensible manner,” Krzyzewski said in a press release. “We need to stay current with what’s happening. I’m glad (the Fair Pay to Play Act) was passed because it pushes the envelope, it pushes the issue.”
“All these people who are crying this is going to be the end of the world as we know it in college athletics are going to have to get used to it,” Auriemma told reporters at AAC basketball media day. “That’s the way it is going to be and they have to figure out the best way to manage it.”
Critics argue that if players are able to profit off their name, image and likeness, then that will tip the scales in recruiting and steer top prospects even more to the biggest schools in the country, putting schools outside of the top-tier conferences at a bigger disadvantage.
To be clear, college athletes profiting from the use of their name, image and likeness does not mean colleges will start paying them. Instead, it means athletes could earn money to be a spokesperson for a local business or from camps, autograph signings, clothing apparel and shoe companies.
Marshall said he would embrace the challenge.
“Guess what, in Wichita I feel pretty good about our chances of getting some of these kids opportunities to advertise and use their likeness,” Marshall said.
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