Credit where credit is due to Seth Emerson, who is the first I’ve seen to take note of a college athletes’ NIL compensation bill winding its way through the state legislature.
You can read the contents of the bill here. It’s a pretty sparse effort. Three things of note:
- NIL compensation cannot be given as an inducement for a current or prospective student athlete to attend, participate, or perform at a particular school.
- While a player cannot enter into an arrangement that runs in conflict with an existing set of arrangements between the school and player, going forward, schools are prohibited from devising any arrangement with players that “prevents or discourages a student athlete from receiving compensation for the use of his or her name, image, or likeness when the student is not engaged in official activities of the intercollegiate athletic program.”
- College athletes are permitted to hire agents or attorneys to advise them on contractual matters.
Oh, and one other thing — I’ve read the bill several times and don’t see a date set forth in it as to when it goes into effect. As far as I can tell, that means it’s good to go whenever the governor signs; in other words, that would be July 1, 2021. You can probably call that the Kirby Smart Effect.
In case you’re wondering, yes, the bill has bipartisan support. It passed the House on a 171-0 vote.
