COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION Remote location using Microsoft® Teams Thursday, November 30, 2023 1:00 p.m. PRESENT: COUNCILMAN ISAIAH THOMAS, CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN KENDRA BROOKS, VICE-CHAIR COUNCILWOMAN JAMIE GAUTHIER COUNCILWOMAN QUETCY M. LOZADA COUNCILMAN ANTHONY PHILLIPS
Good afternoon, everybody. I understand that -- oh, I'm sorry. Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to the Committee on Education. Today is Thursday, November 30, 2023. I understand that the state law currently requires that the following announcement be made at the beginning of every remote public hearing as follows: Due to the current public health emergency, City Council Committees are currently meeting remotely. We are using Microsoft Teams to make these remote hearings possible. Instructions for how the public may view and offer public testimony at public hearings of Council Committees are included in the public hearing notices that are published in the Daily News, Legal Intelligencer and Inquirer prior to the hearings and can also be found on PHL.com -- PHLCouncil.com. I now note that the hour has come. Ms. Golden, will you please -- Ms. Golden, this is her last session clerking for us, so I just want to say thank you for your service and I think you're going out on a bang with this bill with the phenomenal Education Committee. Ms. Golden, will you please call the roll to take attendance. Members that are in attendance will you please indicate that you are present when your name is called. Also, please say a few brief remarks when responding so that your image will be displayed on the screen. Madam Clerk.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and colleagues. Present.
Good afternoon, members of the public. Thank you, Chairman Thomas. I'm present.
Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, colleagues. I am present.
I'm present. A quorum of the Committee is present and the hearing is now called to order. This is the public hearing of the Committee on Education regarding Bill Nos. 220905 and 230704. Ms. Golden, will you please read the title of the hearing -- and resolution so we can begin our conversation for today.
220950, amending The Philadelphia Code to add a new Chapter 21-3400, entitled "Youth Name, Image and Likeness Protection," to establish provisions related to education and counseling for certain Philadelphia youth and their families who are considering licensing publicity rights, all under certain terms and conditions. And 230740, resolution 17 authorizing the Committee on Education to hold hearings concerning the practice of "leveling" and its impact on students and teachers in the School District of Philadelphia, especially following the learning loss caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Please be advised Resolution 230704 is being held at the sponsor's request and will not be heard today.
Thank you, Madam Clerk. I just want to reiterate that Resolution 230704 is being held at the sponsor's request. Before we begin to hear testimony from the witnesses we have for today, everyone who has been invited to the meeting to testify should be aware that this public hearing is being recorded. Because the hearing is public, participants and viewers have no 18 reasonable expectation of privacy. By continuing to be in the meeting, you are considering to being recorded. Additionally, prior to recognizing Members for questions or comments they have for the witnesses, I will note for the record at this time that we will use the chat feature available on Microsoft Teams to signal that people would like to be recognized. In order to comply with the Sunshine Act, the chat feature must only be used for this purpose. Ms. Golden, will you please call the first panel we have to testify this morning.
Dr. Jacobsen, first of all good morning and thank you for all you do in the world of sports and supporting young people here in the City of Philadelphia. Please state your name for the record and you may begin with your testimony.
Thank you so much, Chair. My name is Kenneth A. Jacobsen and I am a practice professor of law at Temple University Beasley School of Law. Let me start by commending Chair Thomas and other co-sponsors of this bill for their foresight in protecting the youth of Philadelphia in this new world of name, image and likeness in which we find ourselves. By way of background for my knowledge and expertise, I'm the Director of the Sports Law program here at Temple University School of Law. I lecture on name, image and likeness. I conduct NIL programs, CLE programs for lawyers. I did one out in Harrisburg for a group of 400 lawyers from various state agencies that were there collectively for their continuing legal education. I provide advice and counsel to Temple Athletics and Temple Compliance on NIL. I also did a program for our basketball team on NIL a couple of weeks ago to discuss the benefits but also the pitfalls of name, image and likeness. So as I may have mentioned, I authored articles in Bloomberg and others, so I have a deep background and experience in name, image and likeness. Let's work on some definitions now for the benefit of the group and the audience. Name, image and likeness, NIL, is our persona. It is us. It is our face. It is our name. And before 2021 there were rules both on the collegiate level and on a high school level that prohibited athletes from making any money off of their name, image and likeness. If they received any compensation whatsoever, they would lose their eligibility because they would lose their amateur status. That all changed in 2021. And on a college level, Pennsylvania passed state statutes addressing NIL. But on a high school level, there is no 1 such state statute. Instead Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association, the regulatory body for all sports, high school and middle school sports in Pennsylvania, has adopted rules and regulations on name, image and likeness. The rules and regulations are traps for the unwary. Not intentionally so, but just because they are so recent and because there's a lack of clarity often that an athlete could run the risk of a misstep. And in a misstep in complying with those rules and regulations, it can result in a loss of eligibility to play sports. So understanding what the rules of the PIAA and navigating those rules is a very important part of what I see as an important part of the bill that is being proposed to provide education for high school athletes in Philadelphia on name, image and likeness. There are things in the NIL space that some folks just may not be aware of. There are tax implications. If one receives a benefit in order to monetize their name, image or likeness, there are many tax implications for that. There's also -- compensation could be in the form of money and a lot of times for many athletes what they receive is they receive money in exchange for a social media post. You may have read about some of the bigger NIL deals around the country where athletes are being paid a lot of money for their name, image and likeness. That's not 90 percent of the deals. 90 percent of the deals are smaller deals where an athlete is not going to engage representation because they can't afford it and frankly the deals are not big enough to warrant that kind of representation even though they're entitled to it. So there's an importance to educate the athletes about the dos and don'ts about name, image and likeness they're receiving. For example, a pair of sneakers or free meals for the social media post constitutes monetization of name, image and likeness the same way as receiving money does. In this space when there's money involved, there's also bad actors involved. And that is -- by bad actors, I mean people that want to take advantage of athletes and put money in their own pockets at the expense of those athletes. And what do I mean by that.
I mean agents, representatives for these businesses that want to pay an athlete in order to promote a product or service receiving obscene commissions in exchange for that, 40 percent of what the athlete may be paid. Other abuses are if there is a contract, and often in smaller deals there is no contract, but where there are contracts there's fine print in the contract in which athletes are giving up their property rights -- and their name, image and likeness is a property right, they own it -- they're giving up their property rights in perpetuity. Meaning, that whoever they sign that contract with has a right to collect a piece of money from them, all earnings that they make in the future, when they go to college and get an NIL deal, if they become professionals and have sponsorship deals, some of the fine print in these agreements allow the recruitment of money by these sponsors in perpetuity. So there are these kinds of abuses that are taking place, and I think that this bill, a commendable bill, provides the pillars that I think will benefit our high school students of protection, prevention and education. The other part of this bill, and it's kind of interesting, we have acronyms with the same letters, NLI is different. NIL is name, image and likeness. NLI is National Letter of Intent. What this is, is when an athlete is in high school and sometimes even back in junior high, some athletes may be recruited to go play college sports and receive athletic scholarships as part of that recruitment process. Those scholarships are embodied in a contract called the National Letter of Intent. It's a contractual arrangement. Athlete, you come and play college sports for us. We will pay you a scholarship for that. It is embodied in a National Letter of Intent. Not all college athletes are going to go to Alabama to play football or going to go to Kansas to play basketball. There are a lot of schools, including a lot of schools in Pennsylvania, that provide athletic scholarships that are available to our Philadelphia high school students if they know how to navigate the NLI process. And that process, like NIL, has some pitfalls. For example, there are limits to how often an athlete can communicate with a college or university. There are limits on what that athlete is allowed to accept. They can't accept certain payments. Their parents can't or guardians can't accept certain compensation. There are limits on other kinds of benefits that might be made to lure these athletes to come and attend the college and university. And if you run afoul of those rules and regulations, the penalties are severe. It's a loss of eligibility to play college sports. So as part of this bill, there is -- similar to education, there is education on the National Letter of Intent process for parents, for guardians, for coaches, for others to help them avoid the pitfalls, to help them avoid the problems that they may encounter in that process. Like I said, that top recruits will have plenty of counsel, plenty of advice, but not everyone will be top recruits, just like not everyone will get the major NIL deals. Just to conclude, we at Temple have been honored to have worked with Chair Thomas for months actually leading up to this bill on understanding a role that we could play in this process. We have a team at Temple that has been working, a large team, our communications department, our legislative people, myself is very deeply involved in the weeds on this like I know Chair Thomas is and we are looking forward to if this bill is passed implementing it with a partnership with the City of Philadelphia under the leadership of Chair Thomas. So I'll wrap up there. I'm certainly happy to answer any questions that anyone may have.
Real quick, can you just talk about what the partnership is going to look like between Temple and Philadelphia if we move forward and this legislation is passed?
Absolutely. I mentioned the three pillars before: Education, protection and prevention. One component of this partnership is a hotline. It'll be staffed by me and my people who are lawyers who are under our supervision at Temple University School of Law and it'll be a hotline for parents or guardians to call with questions that they may have about NIL deals so that they can be vetted, so that they can get the kind of counsel and guidance that they may need, so that they can avoid bad deals, and we can be proactive in that space. The second part of this, the educational part will have multiple components. Number one will be educational materials written in easy-to-understand language with eye-catching graphics that people can understand that will be distributed to not only the athletes but also parents, guardians, school officials, whoever wants them. With that, we envision an on-school, on-site, in-site visitation by myself and students under my supervision that will provide direct person-to-person communications, questions, answers and other kinds of interaction with parents and with students to educate them both on the name, image and likeness piece of this legislation but also guiding them through the National Letter of Intent piece of this legislation.
Thank you. Thank you, Doc. I appreciate that. And it's been a pleasure to work side-by-side with you to be able to address such an important issue. Are there any questions from members of the Education Committee as it relates to this particular witness? (No response.)
Hearing no questions, Doc, I want to say thank you for your testimony here today. But more importantly, thank you for your partnership, both short-term and long-term, as it relates to addressing such an important issue. We appreciate the work you've done, but more importantly we look forward to working with you moving forward to assure that young people in the City of Philadelphia are not victims of predatory contracts and predatory behavior. So thank you, Doctor.
Madam Clerk, will you please call the next witness we have to testify on this particular bill.
There being no -- are there any other questions from members of the Committee as it relates to this particular bill? (No response.)
There being no further questions from members of the Committee and no 6 other witnesses to testify, I will ask is there anyone else present in this hearing whose name we have failed to call that wishes to offer any type of testimony or remarks here today? (No response.)
Hearing none, I want to thank Dr. Jacobs as he was the only panel here today for participating in today's hearing. Of course we value your opinion and the work that you've done. I now invite all panels of witnesses to please disconnect from the meeting before we go into the public meeting. We will now pause the proceedings briefly as multiple participants leave the hearing. Simultaneously this concludes the public hearing of the Committee and we will now go into the public meeting to consider actions to be taken on the bills before the Committee today. Madam Clerk, will you please call the roll. And to assure that Members are in attendance, Members will you please indicate that you are present by saying aye.
Good morning, Mr. Chair. Good morning, viewing public. I'm present.
Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, Mr. Chair. I'm present.
I see Councilmember Gauthier is in the meeting. Are you present, Councilmember Gauthier? (No response.)
A quorum of the Committee of members are present; am I correct?
We have Councilmember Phillips, Councilmember Lozada, myself. Councilmember Brooks, are you present?
A quorum of the Committee is present. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Brooks for a single motion to approve the amendments to the bill that is being considered today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I offer an amendment to Bill No. 220905. A copy of the amendment has been circulated to all members of the Committee and I move that this amendment be approved.
Thank you, Councilwoman Lozada. It's been approved -- it's been moved and properly seconded that the amendments just read by Councilmember be approved. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it. The motion carries and this amendment has been approved. The Chair recognizes Councilmember Brooks for a single motion on the bills that are being considered today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that Bill No. 220905 including any amendments that have been just approved be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation and further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit first reading of this bill at the next session of Council.
For the record, that's Councilmember Lozada who seconded. It's been moved and properly seconded that that bills just read by Councilmember Brooks including any amendments that have been approved be reported from this Committee with a favorable recommendation. I further move that the rules of Council be suspended to permit the first reading of the bill at the next Council session. All those in favor will signify by saying aye. (Aye.)
The ayes have it and the motion carries. I just want to say thank you to my colleagues, not just as the Chair of the Education Committee but also as the sponsor of the bill. I appreciate you. I know we have a lot more work to do today. For the record, please be advised that Bill No. 230548 was held at the sponsor's request and was not heard or moved during this meeting. This concludes the business before the Committee today. And I just want to say thank you everybody for all the great work you're doing and I'll see you in Council in a little bit. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. (Hearing concluded at 1:24 p.m.) C E R T I F I C A T I O N I, hereby certify that the proceedings and evidence noted are contained fully and accurately in the stenographic notes taken by me in the foregoing matter, and that this is a correct transcript of the same. __________________________________ TANEHA CARROLL