I think the state can change the bylaws of a voluntary organization, or at least make them illegal.

From the official digest of the bill at https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... :

The bill also would prohibit an athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics from preventing a postsecondary educational institution other than a community college from participating in intercollegiate athletics as a result of the compensation of a student athlete for the use of the student’s name, image, or likeness.

AFAICT this law would make the current NCAA bylaws illegal in California. Any California player who accepted an endorsement and was subsequently prevented from playing would be able to sue.

That only applies to the NCAA if the NCAA continues to operate in California. If they decide that their current rules are more important than the participation of California schools, they can leave the state and prevent their member schools from playing in California or with teams from California and avoid California's legal jurisdiction.

Correct, which is option 1 from the parent post. MisterBastahrd seems to believe that the NCAA can just say "you have to follow these rules if you join us even if you're from CA", which is not true because the bill outlaws those rules.

The 4th option that they're suggesting only serves to open them up to lawsuits should they ever try to enforce the rule for CA players.

This is why the bill is unconstitutional.

From Miller vs. NCAA, P 28:

'Under Brown-Forman, 476 U.S. at 579, 106 S.Ct. at 2084, when a state law directly regulates interstate commerce, it can generally be struck down without further inquiry. The Statute directly regulates interstate commerce and runs afoul of the Commerce Clause both because it regulates a product in interstate commerce beyond Nevada's state boundaries, and because it puts the NCAA, and whatever other national collegiate athletic associations may exist, in jeopardy of being subjected to inconsistent legislation arising from the injection of Nevada's regulatory scheme into the jurisdiction of other states. Because the Statute violates the Commerce Clause per se, we need not balance the burden on interstate commerce against the local benefit derived from the Statute.'

Replace Nevada with California and you've got the same issue. A state is not allowed to unilaterally make special statutory carve-out demands on a national organization.

They can say "hey universities, your student-athletes must be allowed to profit from their own likenesses." Totally within the state's power.

They can't say "hey, NCAA, screw your rules, we decided to make up our own for you and you have to deal with it."

Then the bill violates the Commerce Clause of the Constitution and is illegal.

https://openjurist.org/10/f3d/633/national-collegiate-athlet...

Not by the arguments put forth in that decision. The key bit on the Nevada law is stated in paragraph 21:

> By its terms, it regulates only interstate organizations, i.e., national collegiate athletic associations which have member institutions in 40 or more states.

Nevada made the mistake of specifically targeting interstate associations. California does not, so based on the reasoning in that decision the California law does not violate the Commerce Clause per se as the Nevada law did.

You either didn't fully read or don't comprehend what you read.

The NCAA engages in interstate commerce. California's bill requires that any organization that does business in California allow players in California to be paid. It is requiring the NCAA to provide a carve-out for California.

This is the exact same scenario, legally.

This is Option 1. They can't litigate a state to change the law.

And given that the only choice is to remove the largest state from you organization. With that cali makes their own league and now the NCAA has a huge competition for the top talent. Why would you go to school anywhere else than Cali.

> This is Option 1. They can't litigate a state to change the law.

Sure, they can (well, that is, litigate against a state to neutralize the law), usually by claiming it violates federal law (including the Constitution). That's tough here, but I suppose you could throw a hail mary at either a contracts clause or a dormant commerce clause action.

I think there is a strong argument to be made for violation of the constitutional right to contract.

If a college/university contracts to be included in a athletics association, there is nothing wrong with requiring the schools to comply with NCAA rules/regulations.

If a student athlete contracts with a college/university to play a sport for them, there is nothing wrong with the college/university requiring them to comply with both the college and NCAA rules/regulations.

Without the benefit of looking at all the various agreements and the actual CA Bill, it sounds like their approach to cure the issue may amount to an unconstitutional restriction on the athletes' Constitutional right to contract.

They don't have to litigate a state to change a law.

They can simply say "your student-athlete is ineligible to participate."

Can California create their own league?

Sure.

Will doing so decimate their schools' athletic budgets? Probably. There's not going to be much national demand for a state-only organization, and it's going to get particularly ugly when the feds discover schools colluding with rich boosters talent in order to attract them there because of Title IX.

> There's not going to be much national demand for a state-only organization

Uh, this would be true of many states but not of states like CA/TX/FL.

There would absolutely be demand for a CA-only athletic organization.

There's a reason California did this and not, say, Alaska (no offense to Alaska of course).

There's not one example of a regional sports league that has had any sort of success in recent memory.

One of the foundational reasons that the WWF / WWE became the dominant power in the wrestling market is that they were the first to ignore regional barriers.

Rinse, repeat.

> There's not one example of a regional sports league that has had any sort of success in recent memory.

Er, we're talking about them right now. College sports are extremely regional but still have significant national appeal. Many, many people tune into SEC conference games who have no connection to the SEC.

If you think people wouldn't watch an SEC-only league (I'm using the SEC here because it's the most obvious example), then I think that betrays your knowledge of college sports.

I think that the SEC has the drawing power it does because of how it competes on a national level. The SEC in and of itself is a bunch of mediocre to good teams and a few powerhouses that bear the load for its reputation. Every P5 conference in existence would be irreparably harmed if they engaged in purely regional competition / contracts.

Every collegiate conference is regional. [0] Long flights are expensive and inconvenient. You could maybe justify a national conference for men's basketball, but that would eliminate all the minor sports and also would probably violate Title IX.

[0] admittedly, minor confused conferences like Conference USA and Big 12 stretch the definition a little bit, but they're still essentially regional.

I think there a lot of conclusion jumping. The NCAA only make $1 billion in revenue with 900 million in expenses.

A state-only organization the size of California can easily compete especially when any player in any sport with financial planning would move to California.

Why would anyone watch the NCAA in football, basketball or anything else when we'd know all the best player are in the California League.

Also, the point is that rich boosters colluding wouldn't be illegal. This wouldn't have anything to do Title IX. I do agree those rich donors will pull all the best talent to California though.

That's the same as Option 1.

The state can change the bylaws. Or at least make the bylaws unenforceable within state boundaries, which has the same effect. I believe that is what California has done here.

For another example, suppose there were some chemical company organization that had a bylaw like, "You cannot print information about carcinogenic ingredients in your products." But then California passes prop 65. The bylaws are now moot -- if you have to choose whether to comply with bylaws or state law, you either have to take your ball and go home, or the bylaws have to change.

Wouldn't this make it illegal to prevent players from profiting from endorsements ? Voluntary organizations can't break the law.