News about name, image and likeness, along with some related issues, has rolled non-stop since we last met on this site. The concept for NILPublicity.com was to give athletes, administrators and businesses ways to collaborate during some athletes’ most marketable years. I wasn’t sure if recent legislation counted. I was wrong.
I realized that, amid months of tweaking a national bipartisan bill called the Protect College Sports Act (PCSA), which was created to establish NIL, transfer and eligibility guidelines, communications have, in fact, been a problem. Somehow athletes — the people legislation will directly affect — have had little to no voice in this bill. As it stands today, the PCSA would displace some of the protections and rights athletes gained during the past five years.
The PCSA doesn’t protect college athletics.
Dig into the details and you’ll find the PCSA has a few good elements, but …
The NCAA has spent liberally on lobbying politicians to essentially reinstate many of its suffocating rules. Its PR talking points ignore that athletes don’t have the right to organize and means to communicate their positions at anywhere near the same intensity.
Coach, what’s the deal?
I asked a Division I coach if he and his athletes had discussed and understood what was in the PCSA. “Yes,” he said. Then I asked if other coaches at his school communicated the positives and pitfalls of the bill with their athletes. “No,” he said.
Maybe it’s ignorance. Or apathy. Or laziness. Some coaches want to know when they can recruit and sign athletes, period. In 2026, when a coach doesn’t help educate their athletes about a bill that affects them, however, it’s dereliction of duty.
If this legislation moves forward, look for more lawyers to join the litigation fest of the last decade. Limit athletes’ earning options and the NCAA will create more antitrust questions, not fewer. Will athletes wake up one day to find their marketing and compensation rights are limited or ultra-regulated, regardless of market value and they didn’t have a say? 🤳🏼Suzy Smith, Esquire, on Line 2.
The NCAA made a mess and asked the government to fix it.
Athletes saw TV and sponsorship money roll in, yet their coach would get in trouble for buying a recruit a $5 burger. Athletes couldn’t publicize themselves for profit either — those personal rights belonged to the NCAA. How was that right? College athletes had finally had enough, but the NCAA didn’t loosen its grip until forced. Now it wants a bailout.
Maybe the NCAA would find at least some of what it wants if it communicated as much with college athletes as it does with lawmakers. Then again, trying to own athletes’ rights again defeats the need to clear the air. But it couldn’t hurt.
If you want to know more:
Learn more about the legal elements of the PCSA from attorneys Michael McCann and Mit Winter. South Florida-based attorney Michael Elkins further explained the problems the PCSA posed in a chat with Louisville Courier Journal reporter C.L. Brown on Brown’s self-named podcast. My thoughts may be found in articles and around the socials.
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©2026 Gail Sideman; NILPublicity.com; The NIL Edge
