Student-Athletes Need an Updated Uniform Athlete Agents Act

It is November 2023: two years and four months after the NCAA removed its longstanding restriction on student-athletes’ ability to monetize their publicity rights. Or, as most call it, Name, Image and Likeness.

Today, a hodgepodge of state NIL legislation exists. While there has been federal effort, Congress has yet to enact nationwide legislation. This has led to significantly differing rules state-to-state, with tangible effects on schools’ NIL capabilities and, consequently, their ability to recruit top athletes.

Many in the college sports landscape advocate for federal legislation to standardize NIL regulations and promote fairness. Detractors of this position point to those lobbying for federal legislation: schools, conferences and the NCAA. In the bills already proposed to Congress, defacto antitrust exemptions would be given to the NCAA to maintain the system of “amateurism” that has allowed student-athletes to be deprived of many benefits their professional counterparts are granted.