It took nearly five years, billions of dollars and a remaking of its sportsmanship type, but the NCAA appears to have snagged a transformation ball up from California’s government.
In an unforeseen walk Wednesday, California Assemblymember Chris Holden pulled his policy, The College Athlete Protection Act, from a hearing before the state’s Senate Education Committee. Holden had been advised against moving forward with the costs by the council head, position Sen. Josh Newman, according to employees.
Even though this is not the outcome we hoped for with AB 252, Assemblymember Holden said in a speech that the commission chair had no say in how it came about. ” However, this is not a crash. The initial costs speech was crucial to the NCAA revenue sharing arrangement because it primarily focused on allowing college athletes to earn money. I believe that the significant changes in school sports standards indicate that we are moving in the right direction.

The situation essentially ended Holden’s years- long congressional effort to obtain college athletes paid, Willie Armstrong, Holden’s chief of staff, said. Holden is term-limited, and AB 252, which was passed by the state legislature next summer, was intended to mandate that Californian universities would receive direct compensation for their athletes through a “degree implementation fund” supported by earnings sharing.
But, in the midst of next week’s announced settlement in the House v. NCAA case, which Holden said achieved” substantial progress toward performer compensation”, he removed the revenue- sharing language from his bill. Holden intended to carry forward with a revised edition of AB 252 that aimed to establish stricter standards for college players and prevent the suspension of athletic programs and scholarship options.
Rather, he was forced to cut those ideas little Wednesday–no uncertainty to the pleasure of the NCAA, which strongly opposed AB 252. After being abandoned, the association made a triumphant turn.
Tim Buckley, the senior vice president of external affairs for the NCAA, stated in a statement that the NCAA and its member institutions have been working hard to inform lawmakers in California and across the nation about the positive changes being made to the association to address the needs of contemporary student athletes. ” These changes, combined with the landmark settlement proposal, make it clear that state-by-state legislation would be harmful to college sports and pose more problems than it does solutions.”
The National College Players Association and Ramogi Huma, the director of AB 252, who had been instrumental in the development of this bill and other prior legislative initiatives in California, spearheaded AB 252. College athletes had a direct share in the fruits of their labor.
” We will continue fighting for them and college athletes nationwide,” Huma said in a text message.” It’s disappointing that California college athletes will be left without ( AB 252 ) protections. Next year, we will look to sponsor a bill that is comparable.

Holden, similarly, held out hope that the other parts of AB 252 would be revived next legislative session. He said in the statement,” I have laid some groundwork and I believe my colleagues can get it done.”
The NCAA is hoping that Congress will take the lead in passing college sports reform laws, particularly those that grant the NCAA and conferences antitrust exemptions and prohibit athletes from obtaining employee status, instead of California or another state’s legislature. The House Education and Workforce Committee voted along party lines earlier this month to support a bill prohibiting college athletes from working for their institutions or organizations “based on their participation in some intercollegiate athletics.”
Although that marked the most recent step in the development of federal legislation for college sports, it is still unlikely that any such legislation will be passed in this Congress, especially given the close proximity of the November election.
A law in Virginia is expected to go into effect on Monday that would prohibit the NCAA from punishing any school for violating their NIL rights and allow schools to directly compensate athletes for their actions.
( Update: California Assemblymember Chris Holden’s statement has been updated. )