April 29, 2021 | less than a minute read

Hot of the press - Florida set to delay its NIL bill for a year

Taylor English

In a stunning development, Florida - the pioneering first state set to first enact student-athlete name, image and likeness legislation, may be changing its tune. An unrelated charter school bill was passed that includes language that would delay the effective date of July 1, 2021. This law will go into effect if governor Ron DeSantis signs it here in the waning days of the current legislative session.

Three other statues maintain the July 1, 2021 effective NIL change date, and the importance of a federal solution grows larger.

Darren Heitner, a University of Florida law professor who helped author Florida’s athlete compensation bill, was, like many, stunned to learn Wednesday evening that the effective date of the NIL bill would potentially be delayed by a year. The Florida state legislature on Wednesday passed an amendment to an unrelated charter school bill featuring language that changes the Florida NIL law’s effective date from July 1 of this year to July 1, 2022. Heitner and others contend that the NIL language was so buried that many lawmakers weren’t aware it even existed. Hidden among the amendment’s 20,000 words, on the seventh line of Page 66, are the two lines, the first citing Florida’s NIL law and the second changing the effective date.