Michael Santos, Shai Kalansky and Daniel Irvin authored an article for Sports Business Journal on how the concept of steward-ownership, which is an ownership structure that centers an organization’s purpose and empowers its stakeholders (i.e., college athletes), can legally embed the NCAA's mission and protect the rights of college athletes.
There are a variety of legal tools to implement steward-ownership, but a guiding principle is to embed and protect an organization’s mission through the control of key governance rights. Assuming final approval of the NCAA settlement, the parties should strongly consider the use of a purpose trust to be the steward of this new model to ensure that protecting the rights of college athletes is the primary purpose and to also provide athletes a seat at the table for decision making.
Read the full article.
