Several leaders of college athletes' rights organizations have questioned whether Colorado football coach Deion Sanders knew the details of the legislation he recently supported in a high-profile political advertisement for the Protect College Sports Act.
Sanders, a longtime advocate of player empowerment, filmed the advertisement saying he is “helping the next generation find their spotlight.”
“That’s why I support the Protect College Sports Act,” he said in the ad. “It gives student-athletes a chance to shine on and off the field.”
But the leaders of three player rights organizations told USA TODAY Sports
that Sanders has it backward and asked whether he even read this college sports legislation that is still pending in the U.S. Congress.
Sanders, 59, is among several high-profile coaches who support the bill, including former Alabama football coach Nick Saban and Arkansas basketball coach John Calipari. The difference with Sanders is that his storied athletic career was a model of how a player can maximize his rights to empower himself, including through free agency.
“I wish that Deion would rewind and put himself in the shoes of himself coming out of Florida State,” said Brandon Copeland, executive director of Athletes.org, a players association for college athletes. “I wonder if he would appreciate his coach advocating for a bill that capped his rights, his earning potential while that same coach was able to have all of those same freedoms themselves.”
Copeland, a former NFL linebacker, said he has much love for Sanders, a Pro Football Hall of Famer. At the same time, Copeland also said Sanders’ position on this is “sad.”
'Did he actually read the bill?'
Ramogi Huma, executive director of the National College Players Association, shared a similar criticism with USA TODAY Sports.
“Deion said somebody asked him to make the commercial,” Huma said. “Did he actually read the bill? Did Nick Saban? Did John Calipari? Those are fair questions.”
Sanders declined to answer detailed questions about his feelings about the bill when asked about it at a news conference Sep. 15.
“I was asked to do something,” Sanders said then. “I did it because I thought it was the right thing to do, along with certain colleagues of mine that shared in on doing their version of it as well. But… I shot it and that was it. I haven’t thought about it since.”
His employer at Colorado supports the bill, as does the NCAA and all major athletic conferences and schools. They say it would “stabilize” college sports with an antitrust exemption, protecting them from antitrust lawsuits that caused massive change in college sports in recent years, including directly paying players for the first time, as well as unlimited annual player transfers.
Supporters of the bill also say it would help stabilize rising costs. But it only caps the pay of athletes, not coaches or administrators, or other rising costs. Similarly, it caps the number of times a player can transfer to a new school but not how many times coaches can change jobs.
'I wonder if he even knows what’s in the legislation"
Athletes.org and the National College Players Association oppose the bill, as does the United College Athletes Association (UCAA). Andrew Cooper, executive director of the UCAA, also noticed the ad featuring Sanders.
“He supports the bill because he said it will `help the next generation find their spotlight,’ so I wonder if he even knows what’s in the legislation,” Cooper told USA TODAY Sports. “The bill does nothing to help players find their spotlight. They already have a spotlight. They’re on television and social media. But I would think as a father he would want his children to enjoy the same protections that he enjoyed when he was a professional athlete and was a union member protected by collective bargaining agreement — or how his son as an NFL player currently benefits from the NFL (Players Association) as a union.”
The player rights organizations generally instead support a path toward collective bargaining between players and schools, much like in pro sports. One of their many critiques of the bill is that it would take certain issues off the table of any such bargaining with players, including player transfer rights.
Copeland said it appeared Sanders looked at it as “another Aflac (insurance) commercial, rather than what the actual impacts are.”
“It’s unfortunate that his team didn’t feel like it was a responsible thing to do to double-click into the details of the bill and what it is actually advocating for,” Copeland said.
Deion Sanders is on management's side now
On the other hand, these player rights leaders are not exactly surprised Sanders is no longer on the side of players’ rights in this case. Sanders is a coach now who controls players and recently even kicked some off his team. That puts him on the side of management, not labor or players in this case.
“Coach Prime is a coach, first and foremost,” Cooper said. “His job is to win football games.”
Sanders is in his fourth season at Colorado and has a 18-22 cumulative record there, including 2-1 this season heading into a game Sept. 26 at Baylor.
Follow reporter Brent Schrotenboer @Schrotenboer. Email: bschrotenb@usatoday.com
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Deion Sanders endorsed Protect College Sports Act. Critics ask if he knows what's in it
