The light finally went on at the vast NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis.

The folks charged with overseeing most of collegiate athletics in the country are, by the Board of Governors’ “unanimous” vote that was announced Tuesday, preparing to open the way for some top-of-their-sport athletes to profit from their unique talents by allowing them to market their likenesses, images and names.

It is a potentially ground-altering move, but enlightenment?

Hardly.

After months of treating the issue as if it were the plague and being unable to bully California legislators on that state’s “Fair Pay to Play” act, the NCAA has finally acknowledged it is holding a losing hand.

Just last month NCAA President Mark Emmert had termed the California legislation “an existential threat” to the collegiate framework.

But as more states — some fearing their schools would take a backseat to California universities in recruiting — have lined up to undertake similar legislation and Congress has begun to show interest, the NCAA has come to realize what many have long known, namely that it is out-numbered, on shaky ground and sorely behind the times.

Let’s remember the NCAA represents its member institutions more than it stands up for those it likes to call “student-athletes” and have long treated like chattel.

The term “student-athletes” was, in fact, calculatingly concocted by then-NCAA President Walter Byers in 1955 as a way to help its members avoid having to pay workers comp claims when players were injured.

So when the push began to consider paying players for the use of their name, image and likeness, some members recoiled that money now going to schools might be reduced if players were given a cut.

The campaign to pay athletes based on their likeness, name and image was propelled by cases such as that of former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon.

Watching a friend’s son play EA Sports’ “NCAA Basketball” video game featuring the Bruins, O’Bannon noticed a figure that looked remarkably like himself. It was, in fact, his jersey No. 31 with his trademark smooth left-handed jumper.

In a 2013 interview with the Star-Advertiser, O’Bannon said, “I was flattered initially. My first thought was, ‘That’s pretty cool. I’m on the video game.’ ”

Then, O’Bannon said his friend observed, “What’s funny about this whole thing is we paid X amount of dollars for (the game) and you didn’t see one penny of it.”

O’Bannon thought about that, went to court and his case and others like it have brought an overdue recognition that athletes, like people in other fields of endeavor, are due compensation for the use of their likenesses, names and images.

This benefits the top drawer athletes in not only football and basketball but, potentially, golf, baseball, softball, swimming, volleyball and other sports who have the cache to market their abilities to clothing, equipment, sports drink and other companies.

The devil now will be in the details, and it behooves the NCAA to work with the states and feds to hammer out one equitable all-encompassing standard.

California’s law, which begins in 2023, allows athletes or their representatives to negotiate directly with manufacturers, bypassing the schools, and puts no limit on the compensation. Meanwhile, the NCAA appears likely to want more constraints.

What the NCAA announced today was a step in the right direction. But it is just the first one in a long-overdue journey.

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