SACRAMENTO — There were two guests of honor at the monthly meeting of the Oakland Rotary club in November 2015: the University of California marching band and a sports economics expert railing about the N.C.A.A.’s rules barring college athletes from collecting compensation for their play.

While the band riled up the crowd in the small theater — it was the week of Cal’s rivalry football game against Stanford — the conversation about a multibillion-dollar enterprise dependent on amateur athletes caught the ear of an audience member, Nancy Skinner .

Her response could shatter the business model of major college sports.

Termed out of the State Assembly in 2014 and considering a run for the State Senate, Skinner had spent much of her adult life championing causes that one might expect from a Berkeley activist: organizing graduate assistant teachers , banning Styrofoam from fast-food businesses and raising taxes on the rich.

“All of a sudden the light bulb was going off,” Skinner said of the discussion at the Rotary meeting. “Rather than being the bystander going, ‘Gosh, this is so unfair, how do these people get away with this?’, I’m like, ‘Hey, if I’m in the Senate, can the state do something about it?’”