South Carolina May Follow ‘Fair Pay To Play’ Model

• A study is being done by the NCAA on their current policies about athletes acquiring deals for monetary profit.
• The results of the study are expected to be ready for the public by October.
• Clemson head football coach, Dabo Swinney, who rakes in $9.2 million each season, is not in favor of student-athletes being paid for outside sponsorships.

COLUMBIA, S.C. – Lawmakers in South Carolina will be proposing a bill, not unlike the Fair Pay to Play Act from California this January. Senator Marlon Kimpson and Representative Justin Bamberg are the two legislators behind this new bill. Although it holds similarities to the proposal in California, they differ in a few ways.

The main point would be to give athletes in college the ability to make money by being able to receive paid endorsement deals. Within the proposal for South Carolina lies an option for all schools that have players involved in such deals to open up trust funds for these athletes where the money would be held until they graduate. Only after graduation would players be able to collect their earnings.

A Second Effort

These two politicians have tried before to get a bill such as this one to become a reality back in 2014, but fellow legislators were not interested in the idea. However, they now believe with the publicity of the Fair Pay to Play Act in California they will be able to get the attention of lawmakers in their state.

“The first time around there was hostility,” said Kimpson. “But I think everybody recognizes that things are different. We see this is no longer amateur.”

Sometime within the next four weeks, California Governor Gavin Newsom can either sign the bill or not. Should he sign, the law would be put into practice beginning in 2023. Both Kimpson and Bamberg see this as a good sign of the times changing in favor of what they’d like for their own state.

“The legislation passed in California is a sign of the times,” said Kimpson. “The NCAA is not an amateur sports league. This is a multibillion-dollar sports empire where everyone involved makes money except the players on the field who earn it.”

In 2014, the original idea would’ve made college players in South Carolina keep at least a 2.0 GPA and take a finance class to better understand how to handle money. It would’ve also given each athlete an initial $2.500 in their trust funds. The current proposal embodies these same requirements but the $2,500 deposit has not yet been discussed.

The South Carolina Legislature meets in January, where both Kimpson and Bamberg will be introducing their bill. One prolific person at Clemson University, the school with the number one team in college football at the moment, is not behind the idea. Head coach Dabo Swinney said that he would no longer work in collegiate sports should such a bill pass. Come January, LegalSportsBetting.com thinks the public will have a better grasp on how the state of South Carolina stands as a whole on this proposal.

News tags: California | Clemson | Dabo Swinney | Fair Pay to Play Act | Gavin Newsom | Justin Bamberg | Marlon Kimpson | NCAA | South Carolina