Charley Court, a tennis student-athlete at Ocean State University (OSU), turned 21 today. She is having a birthday party tonight and permitted her name and picture to be used by her cousin to promote the event. Charley’s cousin wanted to create a flyer, so she solicited the help from a good friend who is the chief marketing officer at a local entertainment group. In addition to Charley’s name and picture and the location of the party, the flyer included this other individual’s name as the promoter of event. When flyer was completed, Charley posted it to her Facebook page and twitter account. OSU stated Charley was unaware using her name and picture to promote a birthday party in her honor would be considered a promotion of the nightclub where the event was being held. Charley did not receive any compensation for use of her name and picture and even paid the cover charge to attend the event.
Is this a violation?
Yes. NCAA Bylaw 12.5.2.1 states that after becoming a student-athlete, an individual shall not be eligible for participation in intercollegiate athletics if the individual:
(a) Accepts any remuneration for or permits the use of his or her name or picture to advertise, recommend or promote directly the sale or use of a commercial product or service of any kind; or
(b) Receives remuneration for endorsing a commercial product or service through the individual’s use of such product or service.
This is an actual fact pattern for a secondary violation posted on LSDBi. In this case, the student-athlete was instructed to remove the poster from her social networking site and a cease-and-desist letter was sent to Charley’s cousin.
Jennifer M. Condaras
Associate Commissioner
BIG EAST Conference
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