Texas Football: How NCAA-California athlete compensation feud impacts Longhorns

(Photo by Maxx Wolfson/Getty Images)
(Photo by Maxx Wolfson/Getty Images) /
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The NCAA is once again the midst of the student-athlete compensation conversation that won’t stop soon. How would Texas football fit into the picture?

The constant debate regarding the compensation of student-athletes under the control of the NCAA grew to include legal ramifications on June 24. The state of California is considering passing a bill to allow schools to compensate their student-athletes. It was pretty apparent that the NCAA would have a problem with this legal shift. How would the Texas football program be impacted by a pushing of this legislature in California?

The infamous president of the NCAA Mark Emmert spoke his mind on the topic on June 24, and it definitely didn’t fall in favor of student-athletes in the state of California that would be compensated in this situation.

Per USA Today, Emmert wrote a letter in response to the legislation that the state of California tried to put through lately. That letter he penned wasn’t too friendly to the schools that compete athletically under the microscope that is Emmert and the NCAA.

It looks as if Emmert threatened that those California schools wouldn’t be able to compete in NCAA sanctioned sports if they were to have athletes compensated. This is a theme that could continue on into the college football regular season if California pushes it hard with the NCAA.

Now while the state of California has legislation that obviously works radically different than Texas, this is still an important trend to follow in college sports. The idea of paying college athletes for their likeness was actually brought about by the NCAA recently.

According to an announcement that Emmert made back in May, the NCAA already is working on a study that explores the process of paying players for their likeness. This would mostly be a relevant point in profit sports, such as college football and basketball.

Clearly paying college athletes would impact the Texas Longhorns football program if it were to come into action soon. Texas football is one of the nation’s most profitable football programs, and athletic departments in general. The impact could also extend in the Texas basketball and baseball programs, which can both be profit sports for the school too.

Rising junior star Texas quarterback Sam Ehlinger also brought about the point of having players paid for their likeness, and for the effort they put in on a day-by-day basis, on his Twitter timeline back on March 7. Ehlinger is a top name in college football nowadays and has to be one of the most profitable athletes on the Forty Acres in recent memory.

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Sometimes these trends of the NCAA holding back athletes from getting paid and the legislation gets to ridiculous levels. It doesn’t seem like it is a conversation the NCAA is willing to have, and that is really clashing with the state of California and all of its big time athletic schools right now. Texas is also a brand that would change drastically if there were other big colleges that started compensating athletes.