FSU feeling limitations from Florida's current NIL law: 'We can’t compete' - 247Sports
Name, Image, and Likeness was a focal point during the athletics portion of Florida State’s Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday afternoon. The NIL developments in the state of Florida’s political scene was discussed among a couple of board members as well as athletic director Michael Alford.
A clear theme that emerged from the dialogue was that FSU representatives feel that their athletic program is at a competitive disadvantage compared to schools in other states that do not have restrictions on what schools can do to help facilitate NIL agreements.
Drew Weatherford, a former FSU quarterback who was appointed to the Board of Trustees in September, got the topic going at the meeting when he asked Alford about the current state of NIL in Florida and where he sees it headed.
“The Chairman and I spent some time up on the Hill, meeting with various representatives, talking, giving our viewpoints,” Alford said. “The legal office has done an unbelievable job of assisting us and looking at the bill that’s going in front of the House right now. …And talking to various representatives, just laying out what other states are doing.
“I’m sad to say that I know more about this bill given that I’ve chaired the NIL the last two years to the NCAA, but that I care to know. And I’ve talked to more congressmen than I care to. Don’t put that in the minutes, by the way (a joke). …Just met with a U.S. Senator on it for three hours. Who’s thinking about putting a bill in front of congress. And really just laying out the timeframe, and I am 100 percent behind the NIL. 100 percent. There does need to be some guardrails, to some degree, we’ve submitted some to the NCAA about what we thought they should be, the committee, and we’ll see where it goes. We have a call next Wednesday, a national call again, on it to get an update on where it’s going, with our group of six.
“So, all for it. I’m anxious to see where this bill goes. And see, because Florida, we’re a little bit, it’s a great bill. But we can’t compete with what our competitors in other states can do at this moment.”
BoT Chair Peter Collins then followed up on Alford’s statements by saying there is leadership at the state capitol that “doesn’t really like it.”
“It comes from they just don’t want players to get paid,” Collins said, throwing his hands up in the air before crossing them. “Which is, fine, but that horse has left the barn. So, we’re doing a lot of lobbying. As Mike said, we’ve met with a bunch of people up there.
“One thing that I would say that’s lost in all this is, everybody thinks NIL is just a money thing. ‘Well, the universities want to be involved because they want to be able to facilitate the payment.’ Well that’s part of it, because these are real contracts, these NIL deals, right? These are 17, 18-year-old kids. They don’t know anything about this kind of contract. So somebody needs to provide some support for them. The law school, we’ll talk to the dean about it, but somebody needs to provide counseling on this, right? The person who is doing the NIL deal from a business standpoint doesn’t really know much about it. The athlete doesn’t know much about it. And the person facilitating it is sort of ad hoc, not affiliated with the university. And I said this in some remarks the other night, it’s almost as if if you get to an NIL deal and it works out, you got lucky. Part of this legislation is for us to be better for our student athletes. It’s not just helping them get more money than some other school is going to get them. It’s really doing the right thing by these athletes.”
Alford then noted that FSU’s Apex program can help educate and inform athletes, but it couldn’t “advise and facilitate through the process.”
“And that’s really where other states are allowing the representatives to go do,” Alford said.
Weatherford said he brought up the topic because he believes it’s important in the context of the FSU athletics program.
“It can be the difference of us getting back to where we want to be in sports where we’re not, and maintaining where we are in sports where we’re where we want to be. Or not, truthfully. So I’m all in favor of the university helping facilitate,” Weatherford said. “From personal experience, I didn’t pay a health bill, a utility bill, buy groceries my entire time in college. So no offense to student athletes, but you’re pretty catered to and you don’t have a lot of real-life experience. Let alone dealing with legal contracts.
“There definitely needs to be some help and guidance provided by universities.”
Financial literacy was also discussed, and how international students are impacted by NIL.
Under current state law, Florida universities can educate athletes on NIL opportunities. But they cannot help facilitate or promote NIL deals. Florida legislatures are currently in discussions about tweaking the law.
source: https://247sports.com/college/florida-state/Article/FSU-football-NIL-limitations-state-law-Michael-Alford-board-of-trustees-182560475/
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