On Monday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 206, which makes it illegal, starting in 2023, for the NCAA to prevent any in-state athlete from profiting off their name, image or likeness.

This doesn’t mean schools will start “paying the players.” It means that a player will be allowed to pick up endorsements, sponsorships or employment based on their playing sports.

That can mean everything from a likely No. 1 NBA draft pick grabbing a Nike deal, to the star quarterback getting a state-wide television commercial, to a national champion wrestler signing autographs at a local car dealership, to a softball player going back to her hometown and starting a summer camp training kids.

What it doesn’t mean is the destruction of college athletics, like so many critics are howling.

We went through this in the 1980s when the International Olympic Committee got rid of its “amateurism” rules.

Things like the men’s basketball Dream Team and the U.S. women’s national soccer team proved to be incredibly popular. The fact that Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt could compete in multiple Olympics increased the popularity of the Games.

Meanwhile, none of the governing bodies (IOC, USOC, USA Gymnastics) or media companies (NBC) that used to have a monopoly on corporations attaching its brand to the Olympics, still had plenty of money to operate.

The free market made everything better. All the critics were wrong.