On Thursday, a House Subcommittee held the first Congressional NIL hearing since rules passed. It’s the sixth hearing total after five took place in the Senate.

Five witnesses spoke: NCAA President Mark Emmert, CIAA Commissioner Jacqie McWilliams, Baylor President Linda Livingstone, Washington State golfer Cami March, and one non-NCAA representative: NCPA executive director Ramogi Huma.

The main takeaway? Every witness except one agreed Congress should pass a federal NIL law. Huma said he would only support a law that addresses “broad-based” reforms.

The other four witnesses listed several grievances about the current NIL era that they implored Congress to fix. 

The most common concern was that without a federal law, NIL is contributing to an uneven and unfair recruiting landscape — even though a recruiting arms race existed long before NIL.

They voiced other anxieties, too.

• Emmert asked for “limited safe harbor protections” against litigation so the NCAA could govern NIL without “endless” lawsuits — aka an antitrust exemption. They’ve been begging for this in court and Congress for years.
• McWilliams worried that a federal law imposing expensive NIL requirements would cause problems at lower-division schools with small budgets.
• March said athletes need more education about financial literacy, personal branding, and other NIL-related business matters. 
• Huma, on the other hand, argued that Congress should be looking at college sports issues beyond NIL, like health standards and sexual assault.

Despite three hours of debate, expect state laws to rule the day for at least a while longer. 

There’s more consensus on NIL in Congress than other national issues — but it still could be months before a law gets passed. 

Just 24 hours before the Congressional hearing, the National Labor Relations Board published an explosive memo about college athletes’ amateur status. It came up several times Thursday.

General counsel Jennifer Abruzzo wrote that certain athletes should be considered employees under the National Labor Relations Act. Schools could be in violation of the act if they mislead athletes — and Abruzzo specifically attacked the phrase “student-athletes.”

This doesn’t automatically change athletes’ status. But it promised that Abruzzo will take this stance in future cases brought before the NLRB. 

Here’s where lawmakers and NCAA officials stand:

• Unsurprisingly, Emmert, McWilliams, and Livingstone all opposed the idea — reflecting the NCAA’s official stance — though Emmert said “student-athlete” less than usual.
• Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) said that NIL rights, and the NLRB’s memo, were “long overdue.”
• Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), endorsed the College Athlete Bill of Rights and helped Northwestern football players try to unionize, so she supports the idea.
• Huma has also long supported giving athletes protections under employment law.

Emmert and co. warned that making athletes employees might be the end of college sports as we know them — a baseless threat they’ve used every time compensation reform has been on the table.

They said that schools would be forced to cut women’s sports if they had to divert revenue to compensate football players, for example. But Title IX requires that schools provide equitable women’s sports opportunities regardless of revenue.

Either way, if any college athletes get reclassified as employees, it won’t happen for a long time. But as long as Abruzzo is in charge, the movement seems to have a friend at the NLRB.