NCAA President Charlie Baker has taken *** step to further the conversation about athlete compensation. But what does this step mean for college sports? What is the reaction and how soon will athletes actually get paid? We are going to discuss with the sports business reporter covering college sports for front office sports. That is Amanda Christos who joins me now, Amanda, pleasure to meet you. How's it going? I'm doing well. Never *** slow news day in uh the college sports that's for sure, never is. There's been *** lot to talk about recently from the college football playoffs to this and Amanda, I wanna get right into it because on Tuesday morning, Charlie Baker, he sent *** letter to NCAA membership outlining *** number of recommendations including *** system of direct compensation from schools to athletes. Can you explain Baker's proposal and my question to you also with this is, is this an actual conversation starter when it comes to discussing student athletes getting paid? Absolutely. So the proposal had it, it wasn't extremely specific, but the most specific information that we got about how this paying athletes idea would look is that the athletes would um So for ha half of the athletes at an athletic department at the very released each of them, uh, for each of them, the NC ***, um, would mandate that the richest schools would have to pay $30,000 and put it in an educational trust fund for those athletes, um, per year. Right. So it's not directly paying the athletes salaries. It's not calling them employees. Um, it's not allowing them to unionize and it's not, you know, giving them carte blanche to use the money for whatever they want. But like theoretically, they could use the money for um anything that, you know, it's like if they wanna call getting new shoes and educational expense, like that's what they could do, right? Um It's definitely *** step in the right direction. However, I will say, I'm not sure that it's as revolutionary as *** lot of folks are calling it specifically because it is an extension of benefits rather than an actual admission that athletes are employees um or an an admission that they would get other benefits that employees would receive. Like, you know, workers compensation, the right to unionize et cetera, right? Not as revolutionary as some may think there. And I want to follow up on that real quick before we move on because it makes me think if it's not as revolutionary and you're not necessarily making athletes employees, is this just *** way for the NCAA to circumvent some of the heat, they've been getting in court and having different lawsuits. Do you think it's, that, is that what might be going on here? That's exactly what's happening. Um, Charlie Baker is seeing that there are outside forces and he said this in the proposal, right. Um, there are outside forces. There are several federal lawsuits, *** couple, um, cases at the National Labor Relations Board. Um, and even, you know, folks in Congress, *** new bill was, or an old bill was reintroduced yesterday, that would call athletes employees, right? Um He's seeing all these outside forces, he's saying to his membership, look, you guys like we need to change, we need to put forth *** model that is going to be some sort of compromise and we need to fill Congress specifically, right? Because what they want is for Congress to say college athletes are not employees. We need to give Congress proof that we're willing to reform so that they will allow, you know, this, this bigger restriction. So that's exactly what's going on here. It's less about reform and more about preserving amateurism. Um Writ large uh preserving amateurism. Sounds to me like the NCAA just might be being the NCAA here that we've always seen. So on that note, Amanda, there's always been *** variety of different feelings across the spectrum in terms of schools paying athletes. But from what you've seen, the people that you've spoken to, what has been the reaction to Baker's proposal, you know, the reaction has been mixed. Um *** lot of folks were very excited. Um It's funny like *** few hours after the NCAA *** um put out this proposal, I got another email from them that was like *** bunch of quotes from folks that work in college athletics, big media members, et cetera who were praising the proposal, right? Um But there were also folks who were saying, hey, you know, um that thought it, it was even going too far. They were upset about an nil component of it. Um They were concerned about, you know, the economics of how we, how are the athletic department is going to pay for this? And I also thought it was instructive that uh SEC Commissioner Greg Sanki came out publicly saying, you know, essentially that he was upset that he didn't get notified uh in advance that this proposal was going to be sent out to the division one membership. Um You know, so that was interesting because he's definitely the most powerful person in college sports. Yeah, that was an interesting reaction there and I had seen that one too. You mentioned the nil part of it and that'll take me to my next question here because considering this step that's been taken by Baker to put out this proposal, does this proposal put everyone on notice that the current nil model may not be sustainable? And do you think it's possible we could see student athletes getting paid directly from their school sooner rather than later or you made the point that it's not that revolutionary. So, is this gonna take *** lot more longer than some of us may think? Yeah, I, I definitely think that this, even if this proposal passes, it's going to take *** while. I mean, um there's like Charlie Baker has said, hey, I want all, everyone in the membership to come and give their opinions on this, you know, like sort of like *** public comment period. There's no timeline for when it would be voted on or implemented. I would say that as far as athletes getting paid, it's probably more likely that um the National Labor Relations Board or some other court is going to make this decision for the NCAA in the next year or two. Um Even if the NC *** does pass this proposal, it may not matter if the federal courts make their own decisions, right? Um But I think *** as for the idea of nil, um everyone being put on notice that NIL is not sustainable, the way that it is, the way that I would describe that because I think you're right, the way that I would describe it is the creation of nil collectives and the way those are being used. Um you know, in recruiting, those are it, it's showing that there's *** market to pay players for being on *** certain team and going to *** certain school there are millions of dollars that folks are willing to give to that idea. So, you know, to me what it's proving is that everyone needs to take *** step further. Um take, you know, take nil maybe *** step further into paying players otherwise, you know, it, there's gonna be no regulation. I mean, everyone talks about wanting regulation. The way to get regulation is to create *** union for athletes, create free agency, collective bargaining, all of that sort of thing. Um And they don't have that right now because all the only way to pay the players is through an il Yeah, and with NLL like that and I'm not saying this in *** bad way. It's just been very open. It's been the wild, wild west if you wanna say with that and that's what it's been. And it'll be interesting to see going forward if athletes are paid, if they're actually finally treated and recognized as employees, we will see, but you know who's gonna be on top of it? That'll be Amanda Christos with front office sports. She does such *** great job covering the NCAA Amanda. I appreciate this conversation. Thank you for your time. We will definitely do it again. Yeah. Thanks for having me.