College football season is here, which is why two Ohio lawmakers said Wednesday it’s time to think about loosening the state’s regulations of name, image and likeness—or NIL—deals.
The NIL framework allows collegiate players to make money off their personal brands. Ohio was one of a number of states to legalize the practice in 2021, around the time the National Collegiate Athletic Association put interim policy in place after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it had to.
Reps. Adam Mathews (R-Lebanon) and Jay Edwards (R-Nelsonville) said Wednesday at a news conference they believe the state needs to cut through existing bureaucracy so that state universities and colleges' athletic departments can more easily recruit talent.
The legislation Mathews and Edwards introduced would close what they call a legal gray area by letting universities and colleges work directly with collectives, the NIL fundraising arms that act independent of the school to pay their players. Under the bill, schools could also disburse NIL money directly to their athletes—though that money could not come from other students' tuition dollars.
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“The way that this works, so there is currently a legal gray area between the collectives and the universities, and that puts student athletes in a really odd situation,” Mathews said Wednesday.
The bill also bars athletic departments from punishing athletes for hiring an agent or legal counsel. Additionally, players can't use university property, like facilities and uniforms, to further a brand deal.
The conversation shouldn't be a calculation of whether lawmakers like NIL, Edwards said. “Whether you like NIL or don't like NIL,” he said, “it's here to stay.”
Edwards said the intention of introducing it during a slow season for the legislature was “to get out ahead of it, have some conversations with our ADs, with our institutions, with student athletes and get some of those kinks worked out.”
Lawmakers are not scheduled to return for voting sessions until after the November election, and since the two-year legislative session ends in December, bills that do not make it to Gov. Mike DeWine's desk would need to be reintroduced.
