In late July, the National Collegiate Athletic Association released a few pages of their "NIL Proposal" to the media. This proposal relates to student-athletes' rights to their own name, image, and likeness while participating as amateur athletes in collegiate sports. After reviewing the few pages released, it is clear that the NCAA will continue to prevent athletes from receiving benefits from endorsement deals and promotional matters.
As a former Division-I student-athlete, there were times when my teammates and I had to decline opportunities simply due to the NCAA's rules against the promotion of our NIL. We could not even accept a small baked-good from a local supporter in town because it was considered a "gift" in the eyes of the NCAA.
Now, with the release of the NIL Proposal, student-athletes are now required to submit "receipts of payments and benefits" from their endorsement deals to the NCAA (https://www.si.com/college/2020/07/31/ncaa-sends-congress-nil-legislation-proposal). Basically, the NCAA wants to know how much money these athletes will be receiving from a promotion or endorsement deal. If they make too much money in the eyes of the NCAA, the athletes can lose a year of eligibility.
Of course, the above statement is simply opinionated after working under the NCAA for the past four years as a collegiate athlete. I use the word "working" here because ironically, the NIL Proposal was put in place to prevent an employee-employer relationship between athlete and governing body. This could not be further from the truth. Once signing an NLI, the NCAA and college institution own you for the next four years. They prevent you from posting certain things on social media, interacting with particular people, institutions, businesses, etc. They impose restrictions on your class schedules and what majors/minors you are allowed to take-on. The list of restrictions goes on, proving that the NCAA is indeed the employer of its' student athletes.
With the NIL Proposal in-place, the NCAA is ultimately stating that they own their student-athletes's rights. They are the sole agency representing these athletes and institutions that nobody asked for. They pick and choose what deals an athlete is allowed to pursue.
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