Vote Smart's Synopsis:

Vote to pass a bill that requires compensating college athletes for the use of their likeness.

Highlights:

• Defines “contract” as a communication, direct or indirect, between an athlete agent and a student athlete, to recruit or solicit the student athlete to enter into an agency contract (Sec. 3-4).

• Prohibits a post-secondary institution of education or an athletic association, conference or organization with authority over intercollegiate sports from (Sec. 1-2):

• Banning, preventing or restricting a student athlete from exercising the student’s rights;

• Penalizing or retaliating against a student athlete for exercising the student’s rights;

• Banning a student athlete from participating in an intercollegiate sport for exercising the student’s rights;

• Imposing an eligibility requirement on a scholarship or grant that requires a student athlete to refrain from exercising the student’s rights; and

• Banning a student athlete from receiving food, drink, lodging or medical expenses or insurance coverage from a third party as compensation for use of the student’s name, image or likeness.

• Prohibits a student athlete from entering into a contract that provides compensation to the student athlete for use of the student athlete’s name, image or likeness if terms of the contract conflict with the student athlete’s team rules or with terms of a contract entered into between the student athlete’s post-secondary institution of education and a third party (Sec. 1-3.a).

• Prohibits an athlete agent from intentionally (Sec. 2):

• Initiate contact with a student athlete or, if the athlete is a minor, a parent or guardian of the athlete;

• Refuse or fail to retain or permit inspection of the records required to be retained;

• Fail to register when required;

• Provide materially false or misleading information in an application for registration or renewal of registration;

• Predate or postdate a written agency contract;

• Fail to notify a student athlete or, if the athlete is a minor, a parent or guardian of the athlete before the student athlete, parent or guardian enters into an agency contract for a particular sport that entering into the agency contract may make the student athlete ineligible to participate as a student athlete in that sport; or

• Represent a student athlete who is enrolled in a post-secondary institution of education, if the athlete agent represented a post-secondary institution of education at any time in the preceding four years.

• Requires a written agency contract to state or contain (Sec. 4-2):

• The amount and method of calculating the consideration to be paid by the student athlete for services to be provided by the athlete agent under the contract and any other consideration the athlete agent has received or will receive from any other source for entering into the contract or for providing the services;

• The name of any person not listed in the application for registration or renewal of registration who will be compensated because the student athlete or, if the athlete is a minor, the parent or guardian of the athlete signed the written agency contract;

• A description of any expenses that the student athlete agrees to reimburse;

• A description of the services to be provided to the student athlete;

• The duration of the contract;

• The date of execution; and

• A statement that the athlete agent is registered as an athlete agent in this state and a list of any other states in which the agent is registered as an athlete agent.

• Specifies a written agency contract that does not conform to this section is voidable by the student athlete or, if the athlete is a minor, the parent or guardian of the athlete. If the contract is voided, any consideration received from the athlete agent under the contract to induce entering into the contract is not required to be returned (Sec. 4-4).

Full Bill Text