Student-Athletes’ Right of Publicity Legal Issue and Implications

Abstract

The purpose of this dissertation was to examine the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) student-athletes right of publicity legal issue and provide recommendations to the future students-athletes’ right of publicity management. Student-athletes’ right of publicity is a unique research area. On the one hand, the law of right of publicity protects a person’s right to profit from the commercial use of his or her identities by another. On the other hand, the NCAA amateur rule disallows student-athletes to be compensated for commercial activities. To examine this conflict and find solutions, this dissertation conducted a law review to understand the law of the right of publicity and set out the legal rules. Qualitative interviews with NCAA Division I institutions’ Athletics Directors (n = 7), college sports scholars and commentators (n = 6), and attorneys and legal scholars (n = 11) were further conducted to evaluate the current student-athletes’ publicity rights management and provide new recommendations to the future student-athletes’ publicity rights management. Findings from this dissertation define the student-athletes’ right of publicity, present a model for student-athletes right of publicity management, and recommend increases in the athletics scholarships to cover the full cost of attendance and the provision of proper legal counsel representations for student-athletes.