SC Senate votes to keep college NIL payments a secret

Courtesy of the South Carolina Daily Gazette 

By Jessica Holdman

South Carolina legislators will allow public colleges to continue concealing what they pay college athletes featured in university sports advertisements and promotions.

The Senate voted 30-13 after about 90 minutes of debate Tuesday to approve a bill exempting from public records law details of so-called Name, Image and Likeness payments made to individual players or sports teams. All 13 “no” votes came from Republicans.

Another vote would send the legislation, which has been fast-tracked through the Statehouse with no public hearings, to the governor’s desk.

Gov. Henry McMaster, speaking to reporters last week, expressed concerns over secrecy but has not yet indicated whether he will sign the bill.

“I think there has to be public disclosure of money coming into a public institution,” he said. “You cannot have secret funds, you can’t have secret money, in a public institution.”

The legislation is a response to a public records lawsuit filed against the University of South Carolina by a Mount Pleasant businessman seeking information about payments made by the school to Gamecock football players.

Frank Heindel sued last September after the college denied his request through the state’s Freedom of Information Act for details about how USC is distributing to athletes its share of profits from media, ticket sales, and sponsorship agreements.

Last June, a federal judge approved a settlement of a long-running lawsuit between players and universities which paved the way for colleges to directly pay athletes. It allowed each college to share up $20.5 million in annual revenue with its students.

Colleges argue that being forced to disclose this information, either on an individual athlete basis or on a team-by-team basis, puts South Carolina at a competitive disadvantage.

Under the legislation, colleges will only have to disclose their total payout to all athletes schoolwide.

During the debate, Rep. Russell Ott raised the question of fairness.

If colleges don’t give a breakdown by sports team, what would stop a school from funneling all of the money entirely into one sports program, leaving all other teams out, asked the St. Matthews Democrat asked.

This raises potential gender discrimination issues under Title IX if male teams receive more than female teams or vice versa.

While Ott ultimately voted for the bill, he also raised concerns that athletes may also inflate their numbers to bargain with schools for higher payouts, and colleges would have no way of verifying the information for negotiations.

Rep. Tom Corbin, one of 13 Republicans who voted against the measure, pushed back against arguments that the dollars in question aren’t public money because they don’t come directly from the state coffers.

The Travelers Rest businessman said the money is only available because athletes practice and play on public property and are coached by employees who earn taxpayer-funded salaries.

The General Assembly has been reluctant to accept the NIL movement, said Senate Education Chairman Greg Hembree, but ultimately yielded with a law passed in 2021 setting rules for its practice in the Palmetto State. A follow-up law in 2024 allowed for more direct college involvement in the process.

Senators continued to rail against the practice of paying athletes Tuesday, with Ott referring to college athletics as a “sub-level of the professional sports system.”

But Sen. Margie Bright-Matthews encouraged her colleagues to have some sympathy for the athletes as well.

The Colleton County Democrat told her personal story of attending USC and using her own meager paycheck to buy dinner for her then-boyfriend, who played college football.

When he made it to the pros, financials were no longer an issue for him. But not every college athlete gets equal playing time or a professional opportunity, she said.

Bright-Matthews’ daughter also is a college athlete.

Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect the Senate took no vote Wednesday, Feb. 18. As of that date, an additional vote is still required to send the bill to the governor.