Mitt Romney supports image, likeness rights but notes: You can’t have athletes driving around in Ferraris
By Jake Rill
Published:
There are going to be some concerns and issues that arise as the NCAA tries to figure out how to best compensate student-athletes for use of their name, image and likeness. But Tuesday’s vote to allow that to happen was the first step in that conversation.
Now, there will be plenty of people sharing their opinion, and perhaps some of those will help the NCAA take the best course of action before new rules are put in place, which the Board of Governors stated it wants to happen by January 2021.
On Wednesday, United States senator Mitt Romney went on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” to share his thoughts on the NCAA’s vote.
“Well, I was pleased that the Board of Governors recognizes that we’ve got a lot of athletes that come from very poor backgrounds that need some additional remuneration, in some cases to take care of their families, but to provide for themselves as well,” Romney said on the show. “So I’m glad they recognize that. But I hope they also recognize that this whole idea of using name, image and likeness as a way to compensate athletes could lead to some very unusual circumstances that need to be avoided, so there’s some work that needs to be done.”
Romney then gave an example to further explain what he meant.
“Look, what you can’t have is a couple athletes on campus driving around in Ferraris while everybody else is basically having a hard time making ends meet,” Romney said. “And you can’t have a setting where some schools that are in major markets or have big support followings, some schools are like the honey pot and everybody, all the great athletes, all want to go to those handful of schools, then you kill collegiate sports. So there needs to be some adjustment to the whole name, image and likeness approach to make sure that we don’t create those problems.”
For the full segment from the show, watch below:
"What you can't have is a couple athletes driving around in Ferraris while everybody else is basically having a hard time making ends meet."@MittRomney, who's in favor of athlete compensation for name, image and likeness, explains there needs to be adjustments to the approach. pic.twitter.com/R38klYEDSk
— Outside the Lines (@OTLonESPN) October 30, 2019
Jake Rill contributes to news coverage for Saturday Down South. He has covered the SEC since 2016.
