Cheerleading is not an official NCAA sport, but it sure seemed like one Thursday.

That’s when they all but got the pompoms out and started doing somersaults on the lawn at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis over Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s just-introduced name, image and likeness bill.

“We commend Senator Rubio for introducing this critical piece of federal legislation to support student-athletes,” the NCAA whooped.

The real reason for the revelry, you suspect, was not what the bill would do for athletes at all. Rather, what it would do for the NCAA and its elite members by providing an antitrust exemption and protection from additional landscape-altering lawsuits.

The only reason the NCAA was dragged into the NIL conversation at all, kicking and screaming the whole way, was because it was taking a beating in the courts. Until O’Bannon v. NCAA and other cases, the NCAA had remained staunchly opposed to ceding any ground to athletes who wished to capitalize on the use of their names, images and likenesses.

Removing the NCAA from threat of antitrust lawsuits would be to take away the biggest cudgel that athletes have in dealing with what is, in effect, a giant trade association.

Students who are musicians, actors or have other marketable talents can cash in on endorsements and other opportunities without losing their college eligibility. Athletes, however, are rigidly regulated by the NCAA which mandates even when they can take part-time jobs.

College athletics is a $13 billion industry annually and upper crust schools do not want to see portions of that siphoned off by the athletes who help make the paydays possible. Which is why the NCAA has hired lobbyists and the Power 5 conferences have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on lobbying. The Associated Press reported the Southeastern Conference alone has spent $140,000 since January.

Last June a heavy-handed NCAA President Mark Emmert was so infuriated by the progress of California’s Fair Pay to Play bill that he threatened Gov. Gavin Newsome in a letter, “If the bill becomes law and California’s 58 NCAA schools are compelled to allow an unrestricted name, image and likeness scheme…(it) would result in them eventually being unable to compete in NCAA competitions.”

The NCAA’s argument was that it would wreck college athletics. The truth was it would divert some of the association’s revenue.

The California Legislature passed it overwhelmingly in September and two other states have since adopted similar measures that would permit college athletes to appear in commercials, be paid social media influencers, do paid autographs and avail themselves of other financial opportunities. (A bill is also pending in the Hawaii Legislature).

That forced the NCAA to try to play catch-up, promising a plan of its own by 2021.

To be sure, there needs to be some form of federal legislation that encompasses all the colleges so that there aren’t 50 different NIL laws on the books and widespread chaos.

But allowing the NCAA to dictate to Congress what that legislation should look like or giving the colleges antitrust protection would be a bigger mistake and a huge step backward for long-denied athletes’ rights.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.