The NIL bill is on hold until September, but I was able to ask Jay Paterno, as a trustee for Penn State University, who has intimate knowledge of its contents, just where it stands. 

“I guess it was 10 days ago. So all of the major conferences, everybody’s on board now with it. It was a long, long slog of negotiations. A lot of going back and forth. I mean, there were even little things that  I was working with a group of trustees that had a lot of interaction with Senators Ted Cruz, Maria Cantwell and Eric Schmitt when this bill was kind of being created,” Paterno stated. “Most of the people in that group initially, going back a couple months, were from the south. And I said, hey, you know, starting the clock 5 years from when a kid graduates is going to hurt junior hockey and hurt college hockey. 

“When I brought it up, there was a trustee from Michigan on the call, so obviously Sarah Hubbard was very supportive of anything for college hockey. In fact, I think she’s a former “Children of Yost,” and they didn’t realize how big that was, and luckily, I talked to Guy Gadowsky and some other people in hockey that were like, no, this will really impact junior hockey, not just for these players, but also for the communities that have teams. So they took that to Senator Cruz and Cantwell, and they got that bumped up a year or two, to really kind of make that concession, but those are things that as you make these things and the sausage is getting made. Sometimes it’s not pretty. But at the end of the day, hopefully you get some sausages worth eating.”

Once a school commits to a player, sight unseen, so to speak, they can’t rescind the scholarship.

“If you come to Penn State or someplace on a football scholarship, whatever it may be. We can’t take your scholarship or reduce your aid because you weren’t as good as we thought you were. Or, or because of injury or illness. The other thing that’s really good about this is we cannot dictate to you what major you take.”

All of this is positive, especially letting the student athlete continue to choose his or her major. One thing that wasn’t hammered out was when a player should get paid. If a player is Canadian, do they get taxed here, or is there a way they can get paid in Canada? 

“Yeah, not really this bill; there was some talk. There were some people that put up amendments or at least ideas of one attached; they wanted to limit the number of foreign players that could play, but that kind of fell by the wayside. In terms of those things, those will all have to fall under the current law,” said Paterno.

I got the sense the transfer portal part is still being worked out. From the outside, let’s say, even if a player has used up their portal use, they could still go to a different school,  under a post-graduate degree program, if they have eligibility remaining. 

“Yeah, so, you know, if you graduate, even if you transfer. That’s good,” Paterno added.

He is not willing to say this bill is loophole-free.

“I said, coaches spend all of our lives looking for loopholes,” Paterno remarked. “I guarantee if there’s a loophole, it’s going to get found. The question is now with the NCAA, it’s going to allow the NCAA to close loopholes without hopefully having to come back for federal legislation because they’ll have some antitrust protection that’ll withstand legal challenges. So yeah, there’s going to be some imperfect things, but it’s going to at least give the NCAA and the college sports commission the protections to do these things legally.”

This is close to the finish line, and Paterno believes it’s too late to take effect for the upcoming season.