Legislative Letter Draft

My name is Kai Flickinger and I am a senior at Judge Memorial Catholic High School in your district. I am writing to you about bill HB297, an issue that directly affects myself, a soon to be college student along with students, families, and communitites around Utah. I am concerned about the evolving change happening it college sports around things like Name Image and Likeness (NIL) and private equity groups partnering with colleges to provide money for college athletics. I respectfully urge you to consider to support HB297 that would require Utah public universities to get approval from the state Legislature before they sign, renew, or change any private equity deal tied to college athletics to maintain the integrity and rich tradition that college athletics embodies. 

College athletics is evolving at in rate and significance in ways we have never seen before, involving the recent NCAA's alowance of athletes to receive compsensation for their Name, Image, and Likeness from the colleges themselves and sponsorships. Universities, particularly large ones with storied porgrams in different athletics have bega leveraging the money they have to pay athletes up to millions of dollars to attend their school. The next step for many of the universities is to deals with private equity firms, who can provide them money to help them attract athletes and improve their program in various ways. The proposed legislation, HB297 would intensify the process of these major universities when trying to make deals with these firms. Our very own state University, The Univeristy of Utah is the first school to sign a private equity deal like this with Otro Capital who is looking to invest 500 million dollars into Utah's athletic programs. Considering that this issue has started right in our bakyard, it requires immediate attention to keep both the colleges in check and safe from making these deals a common act around the state and country. 

One of the biggest concerns comes for the colleges themselves who are giving up major control at their universities in order to aquire the financial support from these equity firms. The Univeristy of Utah's deal specifically is concerning considering they have to give up rights to actions such as commercial operatrions, media and content control, and the revenue stream itself. This bill would provide colleges support in recognizing if these deals are beneficial for them or if they may be giving up to much control to these firms. I also worry about the effects of colleges having hundreds of millions of dollars to provide athletes while they are in school with limited checks and balances on the Unviersities. We have already seen issues with money disparity in college athletics and providing avenues for large universities to accumalate more money for their athletes, and cut smaller schools out is ultimately unhealthy for college athletics.

This is a pressing issue for both myself and many of my classmates in my community who are going to be college students in the near future and know how important college athletic can be to a great college experience. As a person hoping to work in sports, and possibly college sports specifically this policy issue is personal to me and I respectfully urge you to support HB297 to balcance the playing field for college athletics around the state and country as the landscape countinues evolving. Thank you for your time, service, and commitment to our community. I appreciate your consideration of this issue and hope you will continue working toward policies that serve the long-term well-being of the people of Utah.

Sincerely,

Kai Flickinger, 376 N H Street