Charlie Baker’s start with the NCAA not sitting well with Charles Barkley, others

THE DAILY REFORMER NEWS

NCAA President Charlie Baker wants to seek help from the feds in figuring out how to regulate name, image and likeness compensation for collegiate athletes.

The approach is not giving NBA Hall-of-Famer Charles Barkley a positive first impression of the former Massachusetts governor, just three weeks into his new gig leading the NCAA.

“Did he say we’re gonna ask the politicians to help us? That pisses me off already,” said Barkley, a longtime basketball commentator for Turner Sports. “Our politicians are awful people.”

Barkley’s in-studio comments came after an interview between Baker and March Madness commentators Greg Gumbel and Clark Kellog aired Thursday night. The segment highlighted how Baker plans on tackling his top priority of adding consumer protection around NIL for athletes and their families.

“One of the ADs (said) the only thing true about it at this point is that everybody lies,” Baker said about the NIL market. “I would love to create some transparency and accountability around that so families actually know what they’re getting into.”

Kellog put the pressure on by asking Baker how he envisions the NCAA accomplishing that goal.

“There is a couple of opportunities there,” Baker said. “One is obviously we’re gonna talk to some folks in Washington about this. There is a fair amount of appetite to try to deal with this. They’re hearing from a lot of the same people I’ve been hearing from.”

There had been plenty of talk and some posturing by politicians in Washington about the state of college sports before the NCAA lifted its ban on third parties paying athletes for NIL endorsements on July 1, 2021.

Since then, there has been no significant movement on a federal bill. Meanwhile, more than 30 states have passed NIL laws, creating a patchwork of rules and regulations for schools that are competing and recruiting against one another.

If the feds can’t come through, the NCAA needs to take it upon itself to develop a program to try to solve the issue, Baker said.

“The only problem with it is if the feds do it, all 50 states comply,” he said. “If we do it, we’ll have to nudge perhaps some states and their collegiate programs and participate because they may have state laws that don’t require that they play.”

Barkley said if he was in Baker’s position, he’d take a different approach.

“I would actually go to people who actually care about basketball and not looking at it just for themselves,” Barkley said. “I would put a committee together. I would love for Clark to be on the committee, get some coaches, get some players, and let’s try to work this thing out.”

Barkley finished his reaction, emphatically saying “We can’t ask these politicians nothing. Those people are awful people, democrats and republicans. They’re all crooks.”

Some members of congress have even suggested Baker and the NCAA come up with a solution without federal guidance.

“I hope Charlie Baker brings a fresh approach to the NCAA,” U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, D-Con said earlier this year, “and advises that instead of lobbying Congress, the NCAA and its member colleges should work directly with the athletes to ensure they are fairly compensated and get the health, safety and academic protections they deserve.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report

As reported by Boston Herald