April Thread

Oregon legislators are considering a bill that could prevent the NCAA and other college sports institutions from enforcing limits on Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) payments to student-athletes in the state.

House Bill 3694 has the endorsement of the University of Oregon’s athletic department, but Oregon State’s athletic director said aspects of the bill could hinder widespread efforts to create a more level NIL playing field.

This bill is critical for ensuring that Oregon remains at the forefront of NIL policy, providing our student-athletes with the tools and protections they need to thrive,” UO deputy athletic director Lisa Peterson told the House Committee on Higher Education and Workforce Development this week. “I respectfully urge the committee to support HB 3694 and help Oregon continue to be a leader in student-athlete rights.”

HB 3694, introduced by state Rep. John Lively, D-Springfield, would modify existing Oregon law to ensure college athletes can receive NIL payments directly from institutions once the “House v. NCAA” settlement is concluded. The final approval hearing for that settlement is scheduled for April 7.

If the House settlement is approved, the NCAA and member institutions will have a standardized NIL framework with which all schools that opt into the settlement would agree to comply.

Nearly every major Division I institution, especially and including those with high-level football programs, is expected to opt into a framework that would include a roughly $20.5 million annual salary cap for each school to pay athletes, divided up sport by sport at the school’s discretion, with the vast majority likely going to football.

But parts of HB 3694 might conflict specifically with that proposed salary cap rule, and potentially provide a legal basis for schools with greater resources to skirt NIL rules and exceed $20.5 million in payments to players. Some legal experts have posited that the House settlement framework is essentially unenforceable without federal law backing it, as several states have passed laws which may conflict.

“The measure … prohibits associations, conferences or other organizations from limiting institutions’ support of student athletes’ economic rights,” an analysis of HB 3694 from the Oregon Legislative Policy and Research Office reads.

A prior version of HB 3694 also included language that would have prohibited the NCAA and conferences from requiring the disclosure of a student-athlete’s contract details for confidentiality reasons, which could have made tracking the value of NIL deals essentially impossible without a legal fight. That portion was amended out in recent days by Lively.

“The amendment ensures Oregon’s statute does not inadvertently prevent student-athletes from participating in the (House) settlement or create compliance issues for institutions,” Lively told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

HB 3694 would also prevent athletes from earning NIL from “products or brands related to certain topics, including alcohol, drugs, gambling, firearms, sexual entertainment, hate speech, violence or other topics prohibited by the higher education institution,” the bill’s analysis reads.

But a lingering concern for some college sports stakeholders in Oregon is the language around NIL limits, or lack thereof, which they say could tip the scales.

“In the House settlement, a cap was developed for a reason,” Oregon State athletic director Scott Barnes told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Friday. “You think about the chaos in the NIL marketplace over the last few years, we’re hopeful the House settlement can help tamp down that chaos. It’s about adhering to the cap and, by the way, a strong enforcement system so we can make sure schools are actually doing that. Hopefully, that will settle the marketplace a bit and bring some reasonableness to this whole situation.”

Barnes is part of the committee formed by the NCAA to help craft and implement a national NIL framework from the House settlement. But smaller-dollar institutions similar to Oregon State have also taken issue with uncapped NIL spending, or the “Wild West” of the last few years wherein some institutions have spent big on NIL and often reaped the rewards on the field. It was among the impetuses for developing a national framework in the first place.

Oregon has never disclosed the exact number it spends annually on NIL, but Ohio State’s athletic director said last year that the Buckeyes football program alone had an NIL investment of $20 million.

Peterson provided testimony on behalf of Oregon in support of HB 3694, along with NIL lawyer Max Forer — a former Oregon football player. Oregon State gymnast Jade Carey also wrote a letter in support, but no representatives from OSU or other athletic departments in the state have submitted testimony so far.

“There are many bad actors and untrustworthy individuals trying to take advantage of student-athletes within the current NIL environment,” Carey wrote. “Allowing Oregon institutions to provide direct compensation to student-athletes for the use of their NIL is advantageous for student-athletes as it reduces the dependency on third parties that may not prioritize the best interests of the student-athletes.”

A work session on the bill is scheduled for Tuesday, at which point the House committee could vote on it and potentially advance it to the House floor.

In the end, the portions of HB 3694 that conflict with the House settlement could be rendered null and void if a federal law passed by Congress lines up with the agreed-upon NCAA framework. Barnes said the Pac-12 will be among those sending representatives to Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks to make a push for federal legislation.

“We’re trying to build infrastructure to create consistency and standards at a national level,” Barnes said. “Any variation of those standards limits the effectiveness of what we’re building. It’s not unlike past years with NIL where there is a patchwork of different state legislation, and the standards aren’t consistent, so you have different opportunities for different student-athletes instead of the same access and same opportunities.

“A federal bill coming alongside the settlement in a constructive way that creates synergy around correcting this out of control marketplace, that is crucial.”

https://www.oregonlive.com/sports/2025/03/oregon-lawmakers-consider-bill-that-could-prevent-enforcement-of-nil-limits-in-college-sports.html