By: Robert Craft

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill for Florida college athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness starting July 1, 2021.

Making Florida the first State with NIL (name, image & likeness), however California was the first state to implement an NIL bill.

The California bill won’t go into effect until January 1, 2023. The state of Florida was a leader on NIL, and the other states quickly tried to follow our model, college athletes in Florida have been able to position themselves to be ready to benefit starting July first.

The state has consistently been at the forefront for NIL legislation, with Governor DeSantis championing it over the last few years. Other states have already passed NIL laws Mississippi, Iowa, New York, Maryland, Alabama, New Mexico and Georgia to name a few.

While most of these NIL laws are exceedingly athlete friendly, some are more restrictive than others.

Mississippi allows the universities to impose limitations on the date and time which an athlete may participate in NIL events. Iowa places a cap on the number of hours per week a student can participate in athlete activity.

New Mexico prohibits schools from denying an athlete enrollment if they earned NIL compensation as a recruit. South Carolina compels schools to set aside $5,000 per year in a trust for each football and basketball player.

Alabama gives athletes the option to participate in NIL or receive $10,000 a year from the school.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp signed the NIL bill during a ceremony at the University of Georgia. The law is scheduled to take effect July 1, 2021.

Georgia’s NIL law contains a unique feature: Colleges in Georgia can elect to require their players (on all their teams) to share up to 75% of compensation received for the use of their name, image and likeness.

The force sharing would occur pursuant to what Georgia House Bill 617 terms a “pooling arrangement,” with the shared compensation directed to a fund for the benefit of individuals previously enrolled as student athletes.

One year after graduation former players could draw pro rata shares of the fund’s pulled contributions.

Another crucial aspect of Georgia’s NIL law is that the decision to compel sharing is at the discretion of the school. University of Georgia, Georgia Tech and other colleges might decline to provide for pooling arrangements.

One obvious reason why a school would be reluctant to adopt a pooling arrangement is recruiting. If a high school athlete is recruited by Miami, Mississippi State and Georgia, he or she could keep all their post tax NIL compensation by attending one of the first two schools.

If a player instead attends UGA, and if UGA adopts a pooling arrangement, the player will lose some portion of his or her endorsement, sponsorship and influencing compensation.

In my opinion, this is just window dressing. Next month the Supreme Court may decide to make this federal law or defer to individual state laws.

Congress will take that opportunity to roll out a federal law and the state laws will be moot.