Cory Booker to propose national expansion of California law allowing college athletes to take sponsorships – CNN
Democratic presidential candidate Cory Booker will unveil a plan Thursday aimed at tackling the “exploitation” of college and professional athletes, including a proposal for national adoption of a California law allowing college athletes to profit from sponsorships and other opportunities related to their personal brand.
Booker’s plan also calls for an “Athletics Fair Pay Act” to ensure equal pay for professional women athletes and stronger federal requirements for colleges receiving Title IX funding to support women’s and men’s sports equally.
“The systemic problems in sports are issues of economic justice and fairness,” Booker said in a statement. “For too long, we have allowed exploitative practices in professional and college sports to fester — somehow treating sports as different than our broader economy.
“But sports at these levels is a multi-billion dollar business,” Booker continued. “Just as we shouldn’t accept collusion, wage theft, and a massive gender pay gap in any other industry, we shouldn’t accept them in sports.”