Now that everybody and their Uncle LeRoy has had a chance to absorb the idea of the “Fair Pay to Play Act” signed into law on Monday by the governor of California. Boyz are coming up with all kinds of crazy reasons as to why they don’t want it moving into their space. Now granted the law doesn’t take affect until 2023 but boyz are shaking in their boots now.
On Tuesday Ohio State athletic director, Gene Smith, actually stood up in front of real human beings and rambled this foolishness out of his mouth. “My concern with the California bill — which is all the way wide open with monetizing your name and your likeness — is it moves slightly towards pay-for-play.” He goes on to say, “and it’s very difficult for us — the practitioners in this space — to figure out how do you regulate it. How do you ensure that the unscrupulous bad actors do not enter that space and ultimately create an unlevel playing field? One of our principles is try to create rules and regulations to try and achieve fair play.” WHAT!!!?
What he was really trying to say was that he’s trying to figure out how Ohio State can keep the money at Ohio State instead of paying the darn kids they’ve been taking advantage of for years. He was there when the school was selling the crap out of Terrelle Pryor’s No.2 jersey and the kid didn’t get a red cent off of them. He was also there when the school banned the kid for accepting side bread and driving a new car that he didn’t buy. Had the Fair Pay to Play Act been in place in Ohio, Pryor would have made a fortune and rightfully so.
He was also there when Zeke Elliott was in Columbus and everybody and their baby’s momma was walking around with the No.15 on. Again, that kid would have been a millionaire by the time he left school fooling around with Ohio State selling jerseys and autographs. Same goes for Maurice Clarett. These cats kill me talking about the unscrupulous bad actors when the school and the NCAA has always been the unscrupulous bad actors. Give me a freakin’ break bruh!!!
This is great for the student-athlete that is a money maker on any college campus. Not everybody that is good in college is going to become a professional. So if they can profit off of their names while they’re famous in school. I say why not? I hope that other states follow California’s lead ASAP.
Cats like Gene Smith sound ridiculous trying to talk around the real issue. I’m glad that we’ve got a powerful sports figure like LeBron that is using his platform to help change the landscape in college sports for the student-athlete for the better. He could have easily been quiet, made his millions and kept it movin’ but he didn’t. That’s as real as it gets. Stop me when I start lyin’!
