College athletes in Florida should soon be able to get paid for the use of their names, images and likenesses, thanks to a law set to go into effect on July 1, 2021. Florida governor Ron DeSantis signed the bill last Friday while speaking at the University of Miami.
The new law will apply to all college athletes enrolled at a university in Florida. To retain amateur status, Florida’s bill restricts players from signing endorsement deals with their own universities. Athletes can only sign deals that would see them be compensated by an unaffiliated organization.
“The bill does not do anything about paying an athlete from a university, [they’re] still amateurs,” DeSantis said, according to the Sun Sentinel. “But if EA Sports wants to do NCAA Football, they’re going to have some of these guys who are great players, they’re going to use their name, image and likeness, then there can be some compensation for that.”
Production of NCAA video games have been suspended since former UCLA basketball player Ed O’Bannon sued the NCAA and Electronic Arts over use of his likeness. An appeals court ruled in favor of O’Bannon in 2015, but the Supreme Court declined to take up the case in 2016. Additional lawsuits have been filed by other players against the NCAA over the use of names, images and likenesses since then.
The NCAA’s board of governors announced in April that it was now in support of student athletes being compensated. New rule changes are expected to go into effect at the start of the 2021-22 academic year, roughly matching the start date of Florida’s new rules.
Florida is set to become the first state to allow college athletes to profit from their names, images and likenesses. Both California and Colorado have signed similar bills to let college athletes sign endorsements, but those bills will not go into effect until 2023.
