Texas House gives first approval to bill that would allow universities to pay student athletes

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The Texas House preliminarily approved a bill Monday that would allow universities to directly pay student athletes for their “name, likeness and image,” despite concerns from some lawmakers that the proposal would disadvantage smaller schools and fail to sufficiently protect the students at the center of these deals.

The House is expected to formally pass the bill in the coming days. It will then go to the Senate, where it may face a tougher road.

Texas’ current laws allow outside entities, like national advertisers or athletic boosters, to pay student athletes, but prohibit universities from paying them directly. House Bill 126, filed by Rep. Carl Tepper, a Lubbock Republican, would lift that restriction.

The proposal comes a year after the NCAA preliminarily settled a class-action lawsuit that opened the door for universities to pay student athletes, creating a revenue-sharing model in which universities in certain conferences could distribute up to $20 million to athletes annually.

Supporters of the bill say it aligns Texas law with anticipated NCAA rule changes as a result of that settlement and ensures Texas schools can continue to recruit top-tier student athletes. Tepper said Monday that the Legislature would be “killing college football in Texas” if they voted it down.

But Rep. Mitch Little, a Republican from Lewisville, said Texas’ performance in college football and basketball was doing just fine without this bill. He said the proposal threatened to “grow the gap” between universities with big athletics budgets and deep-pocket donors — like Texas Tech, Texas A&M and the University of Texas at Austin — and smaller schools that can’t afford to pay large dollar amounts to attract student athletes.

He pointed to Cody Campbell, a former Texas Tech football player, university regent and oil and gas billionaire who founded an NIL collective to help recruit top-ranked athletes to become Red Raiders.

“What are the other universities to do who don’t have a Cody Campbell, or an Elon Musk, to help facilitate the athletic endeavors of their universities?” Little asked. “How can they possibly compete?”

Tepper said the settlement was expected to impose limits on how much universities could disburse. He added that he was also personally concerned about the widening gap between small and large universities, but “professionally, this is a decision of the courts. You can take this up with them.”

Several lawmakers raised concerns about what recourse student athletes would have to enforce their NIL contracts if they were injured, the university breaches the contract or their coach decides “they stink,” as Little put it, and kicks them off the team.

State universities typically enjoy sovereign immunity protections that prevent them from being sued. Tepper said he anticipated that student athletes’ agents would negotiate certain protections on their behalf and rejected proposed amendments to proactively waive universities’ sovereign immunity.

Rep. Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, a San Antonio Democrat, said her concern was about young people suddenly having access to large amounts of money with few guardrails. She proposed that Texas require NIL money to be put into a trust fund that student athletes would only access after at a certain age, which Tepper rejected.

“I can tell you with firsthand knowledge, a lot of these players are getting in the millions of dollars,” she said. “My concern is protecting them not just in the short run, but the long run.”

“If they can get a million dollars, I recommend they take a million dollars,” Tepper said.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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