WASHINGTON — Washington State University Director of Athletics Pat Chun asked U.S. lawmakers Wednesday to partner with the NCAA and its member institutions to develop federal standards for opportunities now available to student-athletes for monetizing their name, image and likeness.
Invited to testify before the House Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce, Chun emphasized WSU’s support for student-athletes to operate under transparent, national NIL guidelines and recognized WSU has developed educational programs to help them better understand the commercial environment. But more is needed to protect the integrity of college athletics and to bring greater consistency, particularly with states enacting differing approaches to NIL regulation. He was among six witnesses who testified Wednesday.
“We want to do more for our student-athletes,” said Chun. “Real NIL work, we are 100 percent supportive of. It is what is going on with recruiting inducements with some of these collectives, that are ultimately fraudulent in what they are doing with NIL.”
Chun was emphatic in his stance that the mission of college athletics has not changed.
“The primacy of academics is the number one priority of college athletics,” said Chun. “The greatest factor today in social mobility is still a college education…Our mission remains to educate young people and prepare them for their respective futures. We use what is learned in competition to complement what is taught in the classroom. This relationship extends far beyond the provision of benefits and seeks to develop and empower the individual.”
Chun assured lawmakers that he and WSU President Kirk Schulz, who currently sits on the College Football Playoff Board of Managers and soon-to-be chair of the Pac‑12 Conference Board of Directors Executive Committee, along with the university community overall are committed to being part of the solution.
“We respectfully ask Congress to partner with the NCAA and our member institutions to develop federal standards . . . to mitigate the negative impact of the existing NIL environment.”
Pat Chun, director of athletics
Washington State University
“We respectfully ask Congress to partner with the NCAA and our member institutions to develop federal standards that provide transparency and enforceable safeguards to mitigate the negative impact of the existing NIL environment.”
Read Chun’s full comments on the committee’s website. A video of the hearing also is available online.
