The Tennessee General Assembly is in the process of attempting to pass a bill that would provide a public records exemption to the Volunteers’ playbook. That’s right.
In Tennessee, public university athletic programs’ playbooks, game plans, call signals, and practice recordings are typically part of the public record. That means anyone, including opposing teams, can have access to all those files by simply asking for them.
According to Sportico, due to legal betting on college sports, the state of Tennessee (and others) previously enacted legislation to exempt these documents and files maintained by intercollegiate athletic departments from the public record.
However, that legislation in the Volunteer State will expire on July 1. Unsurprisingly, extending the law beyond that date has the full backing of the University of Tennessee.
Citing “information relating to game or player integrity,” the Tennessee House and Senate have passed companion bills with the same intent: to extend the state’s public records exemption for public universities’ athletic programs.
The Tennessee state Senate approved the bill last week with a unanimous 29-0 vote, after the House had previously passed it 74-6.
Included in the legislation are commercial contracts entered into by schools for their athletic programs that “if disclosed to the public, reasonably could be used to affect the economic advantage of a business over its competitors.”
With the exception of “annualized, aggregated compensation data” for player revenue-share funds paid by public institutions, Tennessee lawmakers last year amended the state’s 2022 NIL law for college athletes. That law made almost all records pertaining to athletes’ NIL income confidential and exempt from disclosure.