Guest post: Actually, MANY state NIL laws could be in legal jeopardy

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Last week, Friend of the Newsletter Len Simon explained why he thought that Missouri’s landmark NIL law could very well be unconstitutional. Any state that puts its thumb on the scale to benefit good ol’ State U at the expense of other institutions may very well find itself in legal jeopardy.

But Simon believes that Missouri isn’t the only state law that might get overturned if somebody decided to sue. And it might seem strange to read this from a lawyer who is emphatically in the corner of supporting athlete rights, but Simon thinks that the actual injured party from these laws…is the NCAA.

Allow me to turn the time back over to him.

Last week in Extra Points I explained why a segment of Missouri’s new NIL law –providing NIL rights to high school seniors who commit to attending in-state universities, but not to others – looks to be unconstitutional. But as promised in that article, I’m back with another entirely separate segment of the same NIL law with its own constitutional problem. In this case, the victim is the NCAA.

Yes, the big bad NCAA is being messed with so badly by Missouri, and a handful of other states, that it has gotten my sympathies, or at least my favorable legal attention. This is quite an accomplishment, since I worked on California’s Senate Bill 206, the first-in-the-nation NIL bill, and I strongly support athletes’ rights.

What has Missouri done to create another constitutional issue? The Show Me State’s new NIL law, along with similar new laws in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Colorado, and New York, contains a provision prohibiting the NCAA from policing NIL deals in those states. Missouri’s law, the boldest of the bunch, flatly prohibits the NCAA from punishing or even investigating NIL violations at Missouri’s schools. Yes, that’s right – the NIL cops can’t come to Missouri or punish Missouri college personnel from their headquarters in Indianapolis.

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