![Lily Meskers Senator Jon Tester]()
This whole NIL thing has gotten out of hand.
Of course I believe that college athletes should be able to get paid for the use of their name, image and likeness - which the Supreme Court approved a couple years ago. But since then, the floodgates have opened with opportunities for athletes to get paid...including, apparently, for a political endorsement.
Fox News reported this week that a group called Montana Together was offering University of Montana athletes the opportunity to get paid for endorsing Democrat Senator Jon Tester, who represents Montana and is considered one of the most vulnerable senators in the upcoming election. (Most polls currently show him losing to Republican candidate Tim Sheehy).
According to an email sent to student athletes, the group was looking for "athletes who attend college in Montana and are interested in spreading the word about Senator Jon Tester and causes you care about." And in exchange, they were offering $400 for two scripted videos with their endorsement, $800 for two unscripted videos, or $2,400 for four unscripted videos.
Not a bad deal.
Of course, athletes have been thrust into the political debate this year as the issue of biological men competing in women's sports has become a hot topic. Last year, Tester voted against an amendment offered by Alabama Senator and former Auburn football coach Tommy Tuberville seeking to prevent transgender women (biological men) from competing in women's sports.
The legislation, the Protection of Women and Girls In Sports Act, would have recognized gender based solely on a person's biology at birth, and stripped federal funds from programs that allowed men to compete in women's sports. But it ultimately failed to pass when all 51 Democrat members of the Senate voted it down.
So University of Montana track and field athlete Lily Meskers wasn't pleased when she got an email offering to pay for her endorsement of Tester:
"When I first received the NIL deal offer, I immediately felt frustration. I had to ask myself, ‘Why would someone seek my endorsement when their values directly negatively impact me?’ Tester's vote against the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act is against everything I’ve worked toward as a female athlete.
This vote is a gateway to biological men taking away scholarships, medals and roster spots from female athletes. Many female athletes on my team shared this frustration."
And Meskers
says she wasn't alone in thinking that it was ridiculous that Tester would ask for their endorsement after voting against protecting them when he had the chance:
"I think me and a lot of the girls on the team honestly shared a really similar reaction to this. Why would we endorse something that fundamentally goes against us?
As women athletes, you know, we work really hard to get to the level that we're at to be Division One athletes, and to have biological men take away these positions from us, it's really frustrating.
And so when we got this email from Tester asking us to endorse him as athletes, it was kind of like...well, where is your endorsement for us? Where is you standing up for us as female athletes?"
Tester's campaign denied having any knowledge of the offer (and who knows whether it still stands after becoming public - not a good look when everybody assumes any athlete who endorses you is only doing it because they were paid).
Either way, probably just a situation that highlights the need for some guardrails on this whole NIL thing.
