A state House committee advanced a bill Wednesday that would shield compensation deals for athletes at North Carolina’s public universities from public view.
Rep. Wyatt Gable (R-Onslow) presented a revamped version of Senate Bill 229 to the House Higher Education committee Wednesday, saying the measure is necessary to prevent other states from poaching top talent.
While S229 still writes “Name, Image, and Likeness” rules into state law, it now also creates a specific exception to keep those contracts confidential and exempt from public records requests. Gable argued that if schools in other states knew exactly what North Carolina athletes were earning, they could simply outbid local programs.
NC moves closer to allowing high school athletes to profit from NIL deals
“It’s protecting our universities, because other schools are not able to see what they’re getting in and spending,” Gable said. “Whenever a Big Ten school comes in, there’s no way we can compete with them in terms of finance.”
John Bussian of the North Carolina Press Association called the move a “sea change” in the public’s right to know, noting that no such exemption exists under federal student privacy laws.
“We don’t have any exemptions for coaches’ contracts. They’ve been open in North Carolina forever,” Bussian said. “We oppose this, and we would hope that we could get others to think of it the same way.”
In other action Tuesday, the committee also approved a revised version of House Bill 1123 that authorizes $637 million for new buildings and renovations across five University of North Carolina campuses.
The six projects will be funded by campus fees and bonds, rather than tax dollars or tuition. The bill also raises the limit for formal construction bids from $500,000 to $1.5 million. This allows universities to use a faster process to get quotes for mid-sized projects, rather than conducting a lengthier public bidding period.
Rep. Dean Arp (R-Union) told the committee the change is in response to inflation and will help speed up the building process.
“We’ve all seen a tremendous amount of increase in cost due to inflation, and what we’re doing is raising the thresholds for certain bid and contracting methods,” Arp said.
Senate Bill 229 now moves to the House Rules Committee, while House Bill 1123 was sent to the Finance Committee.
NC Newsline is a member of the N.C. Press Association.
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