California Assemblyman Chris Holden introduced Assembly Bill 252 on Thursday.
The bill titled, The College Athlete Protection Act, would require schools to pay college athletes annually.
Division one schools in California would have to share 50% of revenues with the athletes. The compensation could be as much as $25,000 a year along with an athletic scholarship.
Holden was a former college basketball player at San Diego State.
A California lawmaker introduced a bill Thursday that would require schools that play major college sports to pay some athletes as much as $25,000 annually, along with covering the cost of six-year guaranteed athletic scholarships and post-college medical expenses.
The College Athlete Protection Act is sponsored by Assemblymember Chris Holden, who is a former San Diego State basketball player, and is the type of state-level legislation that the NCAA is looking to federal lawmakers to preempt.
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Assembly Bill 252 — introduced by Holden, a Democrat whose district includes Pasadena — calls for Division I schools in California to share 50% of revenue with athletes who are considered to be undervalued because the amount of their athletic scholarships doesn’t match their market value. That would mostly be aimed at athletes competing in the revenue-generating sports such as football and basketball, but not exclusively.
The bill would cripple the ability of schools in California to compete nationally.
There are also concerns that this would not survive scrutiny under Title IX.
The Washington Examiner reported:
Holden, who represents Pasadena, has introduced legislation that he is calling the College Athlete Protection Act, which would gut all non-revenue raising college athletics and cripple the ability of any California school to compete in football on the national stage.
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So if Holden’s legislation became law, athletic directors would face a tough choice: either get suspended, or cut all coaches’ salaries to just $500,000 a year.
Now for us mere mortals, $500,000 is a ton of money. But when it comes to attracting the coaching talent needed to compete on a national level, it’s virtually non-existent. As Riley’s tenure suggests, that is far below his market value.
If Holden’s legislation became law, and survived Title IX scrutiny, there would be a mass exodus of coaching talent from all California college football programs. It would be the end of USC.
What don’t Democrats try and ruin?