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New laws, new rules bring big changes to college sports

23 April 2021
Dan Ackermann

The college sports landscape could change more in the next six months than it has in the last 50 years, as the NCAA grapples with new competition, new laws and new rules.

How it works... 1. Startup leagues: Investors are flocking to new leagues that aim to compete with the NCAA, evidence of just how much opposition there is to the amateurism model — and how much belief there is in new ones.

  • Driving the news: Sports media startup Overtime has raised $80 million ahead of the fall launch of its basketball league, which will offer high schoolers six-figure salaries to skip college. Investors include Jeff Bezos, Drake and 25 active and former NBA players.
  • Plus .... The Professional Collegiate League, which plans to pay college athletes, just inked a TV deal. And of course, the NBA's G League paid top recruits upwards of $500,000 to skip college this past season.

2. NIL legislation: Congress is expected to discuss a federal name, image and likeness law in the coming months, but more and more states are unwilling to wait for lawmakers — or the NCAA — to act.

  • The latest: 10 states have passed laws that will allow athletes to sign endorsement deals: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Jersey and New Mexico. 14 more have active bills.
  • What's next: Laws in Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Mississippi and New Mexico take effect in July. If the NCAA hopes to buy itself more time, it will need to file lawsuits in each state, notes ESPN's Dan Murphy.

3. Transfer rules: The NCAA Division I Council voted last week to grant all athletes the ability to transfer once and be immediately eligible.

  • Why it matters: This will fundamentally alter the college football and basketball landscapes, where transfer rates were already skyrocketing.
  • The big picture: While this is clearly the fair thing to do for athletes, it also creates what is essentially college sports' version of free agency.

Zoom out ... Major college sports are a uniquely American concept. Nowhere else in the world are elite high school athletes recruited to play for universities.

  • So, while it's hard for Americans to imagine the NCAA model being upended, it's worth remembering that it's hard for non-Americans to imagine it existing in the first place.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.