Louisiana lawmakers advance bill to shield how athletic departments spend public money

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BATON ROUGE, La. (Louisiana Illuminator) – Opponents of a bill to shield how Louisiana’s public universities spend their revenue on college athletes warn it’s a slippery slope, as it would be the first time the state hides how public money is spent from public view.

The House and Governmental Affairs Committee advanced House Bill 608 by Rep. Tehmi Chassion (D-Lafayette) on a 9-3 vote Tuesday. The bill would create a new public records exemption to conceal how much public money universities pay directly to student athletes. The payments are allowed under new “revenue-sharing” rules implemented after the NCAA settled a lawsuit last year brought by student-athletes seeking compensation.

Chassion’s bill was amended in the House Education Committee earlier this month to also exempt how much colleges spend on individual teams. LSU’s athletics department has since come under fire from its fans who have criticized the university for not investing enough money in its baseball roster.

Following the backlash, LSU athletics director Verge Ausberry committed to increasing the baseball team’s revenue-sharing percentage.

Members of the committee seemed to not understand the difference between revenue sharing — which is paid directly from universities to athletes with public money — and name, image and likeness deals, which are between student athletes and private companies. NIL deals are already exempt from disclosure under existing public records law.

The money used to pay student athletes comes from public sources. It is a mix of funding from self-generated revenue such as ticket sales, state dollars and, at some campuses, student fees.

There are currently no exemptions in Louisiana law for sharing records with the public that show how state money is spent.

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This seems like some BS here.

Unless I’m mistaken, if RaginCajun03 is being paid by Louisiana Tech as a part time tutors, whether through Tech’s athletic department for study hall or student services, and someone wanted to find out how much he was being paid by the school, they could file a FOIA request and find out that he’s being paid $11.25/hr. Correct?

But what this bill seems to do is make it to where if someone wanted to find out how much money LA Tech was paying QB Leroy Hebert, that would be exempt.

Maybe I’m missing something here?

I do agree that true NIL payments, between a business/booster and an athlete, should never be made public unless those two private parties agree to it.