The fall of dominoes

They passed it without a dissenting vote out there in California, and now the NCAA is in full-on bully mode. That's the way of it with bullies; they're never more dangerous than when they're scared and cornered. And the NCAA is both right now.

That's because what passed this week without a dissenting vote was a bill that would allow college athletes in California to earn income from the use of their names, images and likenesses. Now it merely awaits the stroke of governor Gavin Newsom's pen to make it law -- a stroke that will sound remarkably like the tipping of a domino.

And that's what has the NCAA feeling scared and cornered and acting the bully. Because this domino has been poised to tip for a long time, and the pashas of major-college athletics know it. And there's not a thing they can do to stop it except threaten to excommunicate every college athlete who takes advantage of the new law.

Here's the problem with that: The NCAA's essential argument is grounded in fantasy.

"If the bill becomes law and California's 58 NCAA schools are compelled to allow an unrestricted name, image and likeness scheme, it would erase the critical distinction between college and professional athletics and, because it gives those schools an unfair recruiting advantage, would result in them eventually being unable to compete in NCAA competitions," it said in a letter to Newsom. "This bill would remove the essential element of fairness and equal treatment that forms the bedrock of college sports."

Let's take the last part of that first.

Fairness and equal treatment?

Sure, OK. Perhaps we should ask every school that ever got dinged for giving a kid a ride to the airport or a cheeseburger about that. Let's ask them how fair and equal they think it is that the NCAA chose to pick nits with them, but let North Carolina's powerhouse basketball program skate for its involvement in a decades-long academic scandal.

And how fair and equal is it that, until Ed O'Bannon took the NCAA to court and undressed it for $44 million, the institution charged with enforcing the "critical distinction between college and professional athletics" was milking its athletes' images for tons of cash in video game sales? And making billions on TV rights to its football playoff and its basketball tournament, both of which are driven by the sweat and toil of its "amateur" student-athletes?

Or allow its member conferences and schools to cut their own TV deals on the backs of their student-athletes, and use them as unpaid human billboards for their apparel partners?

The California bill would allow them to be compensated for their role in such deals, which seems fair and equal in a way that's more than just the lip service the NCAA pays it. Because, listen, that "critical distinction" the NCAA imagines would be erased by the California bill doesn't exist, and hasn't for a long time. Big-time collegiate athletics already are a professional enterprise; they are an entirely corporate entity that operates by the same supply-and-demand principles that apply to any corporate enterprise.

And so the entire framework for the NCAA's argument here has no legs, because it precedes from the faultiest of assumptions. And the pashas know that, deep down. And that's what scares the daylights out of them, because they know if California can decide to call them on their BS, other states will follow.

I mean, if California collegiate athletes can finally get a cut of that fat pile, why shouldn't college athletes in other states? Because, see, that part of the NCAA's fantasy is right: It would constitute a recruiting advantage.

The NCAA's solution to this is typically punitive: Cast out the student-athletes whose welfare they claim to safeguard. But how are they going to do that if other states decide the better solution is simply to allow their student-athletes the same freedom California's has?

And down go the dominoes, one by one by one.