Student Athlete Endorsement Act signed into law

Danny Granger doesn’t have to worry about whether he can afford to supersize that combo meal anymore.

But that wasn’t always the case.

The former University of New Mexico hoops legend who went onto NBA stardom, predominantly with the Indiana Pacers, can recall that two-year window from 2003 to 2005 in Albuquerque when the food choices were often more about what you could afford and not about what was best for athletic achievement.

“We’d play in front of 18,000 people and we couldn’t get any help from anyone,” Granger said.

“I just don’t think it’s fair. ... I could barely afford to eat at McDonald’s and I was on a billboard in the city. I’m like, this is crazy.”

Granger first shared that story during a 2018 podcast interview about the sense of frustration knowing his star power - more specifically, just a picture of him - was being leveraged on billboards in a city he loved being in playing for a university he loved playing for. But he couldn’t actually get the same piece of the financial pie others were getting.

On Thursday, he was happy to hear that New Mexico has become the seventh state in the country to pass into law a bill that will allow college athletes to earn compensation from product endorsements or other use of their own name, image or likeness (NIL) without fear of losing their scholarships or eligibility with the university. Several other states have introduced similar legislation.

“It’s about time ... 20 years later,” Granger wrote in a text message to the Albuquerque Journal.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham on Wednesday signed into law Senate Bill 94 - a bipartisan bill dubbed the Student Athlete Endorsement Act that was co-sponsored by Sen. Mark Moores, R-Albuquerque and former UNM Lobo football player, Rep. Antonio “Moe” Maestas, D-Albuquerque, and Sen. Bill O’Neill, D-Albuquerque.

The law takes effect July 1. While there are several other bills in various stages of the process around the country, some with potentially earlier effective dates, as of Lujan Grisham’s signing of the bill on Wednesday, the July 1 start date would make New Mexico and Florida the first two states in the country to have any such legislation begin.

The National College Players Association on Thursday took to social media to thank Moores specifically for authoring the bill.

The matter is something the NCAA appeared headed to do on a more uniform, across the board basis in January until a Department of Justice letter warned of potential complications such a rule might have in relation to the associations’ anti-trust status.

While the NCAA vows such a rule is coming, it is also a notoriously slow-moving organization for movement on such matters that shift any potential earning potential to the college athletes who participate in the sports it governs. Thus states, again on a largely bipartisan basis, are taking matters into their own hands.

“The NCAA model is not working for the athletes who drive the product,” said Nora Meyers Sackett, Press Secretary for Lujan Grisham. “A national standard would be preferable to state-by-state decision-making on this issue, but until that time, New Mexico will join the states who are pushing forward for the changes so many student athletes have advocated for.”