California signs bill allowing NCAA athletes to profit on name and likeness

California Governor Gavin Newsom signs Senate Bill 206, which will college athletes to profit on their name and likeness beginning in 2023. Your move, NCAA.

It was expected to happen, but California Governor Gavin Newsom finally turned a controversial bill into law over the weekend. Senate Bill 206, first proposed by Nancy Skinner of Berkeley, was passed unanimously, which will allow college athletes to profit on their names, images and likeness.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Newsom signed the bill into law on an episode of LeBron James’ “The Shop” over the weekend in front of James, WNBA superstar Diani Taurasi and former UCLA star and NBA player Ed O’Bannon, the man famous for bringing the light the NCAA’s hypocrisy when it came to using players’ likenesses in sports video games with his lawsuit.

Governor Newsom was expected to either sign the unanimously approved senate bill or let it set on his desk. Either option would have enacted this bill into law. The option where it would not have been law was if Newsom were to veto the bill. By appearing on camera to sign this bill into law in the company of James, O’Bannon and Taurasi, of course, this bill was going to be law.

But what does this all mean? Well, it will not go into effect until 2023 but will have massive implications with the NCAA and could serve as a can of worms for the other 49 states. The NCAA has said that states in which players can profit from their name and likeness will not be eligible to play for conference titles or national championships.

So in a few years, a third of the Pac-12 and a fourth of the Mountain West won’t be eligible to make the College Football Playoff or take part in March Madness if the NCAA holds up their end of the bargain. Good luck telling the USC Trojans they will never be eligible to make the College Football Playoff or the UCLA Bruins they will never go dancing in March again.

Fortunately for California and the NCAA is that we have a few years before this law goes into effect. Perhaps other states like New York or North Carolina enact their state legislation on challenging the NCAA, now that California took the first punch at the establishment?

Maybe by 2023 the Power 5 will have separated from the NCAA and will continue to run their College Football Playoff independently? The bigger question is what will happen to other sports like basketball and baseball who have the NCAA run their end-of-the-season tournaments.

All we know is that in 2023, California student-athletes will begin receiving compensation for their name and likeness. This might give the state a competitive advantage, but we have to expect this was not a lone domino to fall. The can of worms is now officially opened.