Law allows college sport endorsements
DeSantis signs law to allow college athletes to earn endorsements
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill into law on Friday that will allow college athletes in the state to earn money from endorsements.
While student-athletes won’t be paid for playing, they will be allowed to profit off their name, image and likeness.
DeSantis announced the bill will go into effect in July of 2021 at a news conference at the University of Miami’s football indoor practice facility. He was joined by former Hurricanes star linebacker Jonathan Vilma and Florida State great Corey Simon.
“I think it really is Florida leading the way on this,” DeSantis said. “If you’re a bluechip recruit out there thinking about where you want to go, one of our Florida schools, I think, is a great landing spot.”
In April, the NCAA’s Board of Governors announced it supports allowing college student-athletes to receive compensation for third-party endorsements both related to and separate from athletics.
The athletes would retain their amateur status as they will not be receiving pay directly from their school or the NCAA.
“The bill does not do anything about paying an athlete from a university, [they’re] still amateurs,” DeSantis said. “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.
“If you have a situation where you have some great athletes, particularly in sports like football and basketball, whose name, image and likeness are being used to make millions and millions of dollars, and then they don’t have the opportunity to get any of that, there’s something fundamentally unfair to that.”
The Florida proposal was sparked by a 2019 California law that will allow college athletes in that state to hire agents and sign endorsement deals, but that bill won’t go into effect until 2023.
“Fairness in recruiting, I think, is going to be very important, but at the end of the day, anything that benefits the student-athletes is something that we’re absolutely for,” UM coach Manny Diaz told the South Florida Sun Sentinel.
While Florida plans on enacting such a bill ahead of other states, Diaz foresees reaction elsewhere.
“By the time next summer comes around, I think, the landscape will look differently to not create competitive imbalance,” Diaz said.
Regardless, Diaz sees an advantage being in a larger city and media market than most college towns.
“I think we’re going into an era in college athletics where being in a major media market is a great advantage,” Diaz said. “In the business world, if you want to maximize your potential, you go to the bigger
markets. I think as this thing goes through and comes out on the other side, I think it’ll be beneficial to Miami.”
The bill would prohibit college athletes from making personal deals that conflict with the terms of team contracts, according to News Service of Florida.
“It’s just real big for anybody who has come through an athletic department and the generations to come,” Hurricanes senior safety Amari Carter told the Sun Sentinel. “It’s just a movement that everyone should be proud of because everyone should deserve the opportunity to benefit off their likeness.”