Rand Paul Complains College Basketball Players Are Turning Into ‘Rap Stars’ – Newsweek

Senator Rand Paul predicted college basketball players will turn into “rap stars” while attacking anti-trust laws in sports on Tuesday, a comment that caught Twitter‘s attention.

Paul, the three-term junior Republican Senator from Kentucky, attended the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations’ three-hour anti-trust hearing on the forthcoming merger of the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed LIV Golf organization. The proposed deal has sparked widespread debate and controversy, with detractors arguing that the move is one of the many attempts by Saudi Arabia to gain a foothold in the international sports scene in spite of its history of human rights abuses.

During the meeting, reactions to the deal from lawmakers generally fell along party lines. Democrats like Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut urged PGA officials not to pursue the deal, while Republicans like Ron Johnson of Wisconsin were more supportive of the merger.

Paul was among the GOP lawmakers in attendance to speak in support of the deal, but what caught Twitter’s attention was his tangent about his opposition to anti-trust laws in sports, accusing them of denigrating college football by allowing players to monetize their “Name, Image, and Likeness” (NIL) rights.

“Many of us loved watching amateur athletes that weren’t paid,” Paul said. “Now everybody that plays basketball in college is gonna be driving a Bentley or a Rolls. I mean, we’re gonna be seeing rap stars instead of basketball stars.”

While Paul’s stances on anti-trust law and college sports are more-or-less common amongst Republicans, his comments from the Tuesday hearing generated backlash on social media. Some accused the senator’s comparison of college athletes to rappers to have racist undertones, while others felt the comments ran counter to the libertarian ideals he has espoused in the past.

“I am not a Rand Paul fan but he should be better than this,” sports radio host Matt Jones tweeted. “To pick out one group of athletes making money (basketball players) and say they are now ‘rap stars’ is totally about race. He doesn’t mention Football, Baseball, [or] women athletes or say they are ‘Rock stars.’ It’s pitiful.”

“Free market capitalist Rand Paul wants to prevent people from making money on the free market,” journalist David Gardner added in his own tweet.

Newsweek reached out to Paul’s office via email for comment.

In response to an inquiry from Newsweek, the College Basketball Players Association cited the Supreme Court ruling in NCAA v. Alston, which allowed states and schools to pass new rules about student-athletes exercising their NIL rights.

Spokesperson Michael Hsu told Newsweek the Association agreed with the SCOTUS ruling, saying, “Anit-trust is an important concept to apply to sports. The players who score the points should be paid market rates depending on the leagues they play in.”

During the hearing, Paul conceded that there are legitimate questions about the involvement of Saudi Arabia in the PGA-LIV merger. However, he also expressed the belief that the U.S. government should not be involved in probing the matter.

“I find no grounds for government to be involved in the game of golf,” Paul said.