UPDATED: Florida’s NIL bill will go into effect in 2021

After a 24-hour long saga surrounding the passage of Florida’s Name, Image and Likeness bill, it appears that all is back on course.

An amendment that would have delayed the state’s new law allowing athletes to make money off of their name/persona has been removed from a charter school bill, reinstating a July, 1 2021 start date.

The Florida House has passed the amendment, which now heads to the Florida Senate. If passed, it’ll head to Governor Ron DeSantis’ desk, who has championed the NIL legislation of one of his key political victories over the last year.

Mike Norvell, as always, showing he has the players back and their best interest at heart.

Tomahawk Nation will update the story as it continues to develop.

Original story, published April 29

The opportunity for athletes in the state of Florida to earn compensation based on their Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), scheduled to go into law on July 1, 2021, may be delayed by a year.

As the Florida Legislature wraps up its 2021 legislative session (scheduled to end April 30*), Florida Senate Bill 1028 was intended for changes to charter schools, but additional provisions were latched on as amendments — notably, one delaying the state’s NIL compensation law to be delayed at least a year. SB 1028 then passed Wednesday evening.

*A special session will be held in May to discuss the state’s partnership with the Seminole Tribe in bringing legalized sports gambling to Florida

“No one, including most people in Tallahassee, had any warning or expectation that an amendment would be proposed and snuck into a charter schools piece of legislation at the last minute,” Darren Heitner, a Florida-based sports lawyer, said to Forbes.

“It would be a shame for Florida, which was once a leader on the issue of providing athletes with name, image, and likeness rights, to push back the effective date of its law, especially as many other states, including Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia are expected to provide athletes in their jurisdictions with those very important personal rights. I will do whatever I can to urge Governor DeSantis to veto the legislation.”

The passage of Florida’s NIL legislation was a then-huge step towards athletes getting compensation off endorsements, with the state’s intended July 1, 2021 start date the earliest of all states who had passed similar legislation at the time.

“I just want to say Florida is leading on this,” Desantis said in June of 2020, “and if you’re a blue-chip high school recruit out there trying to figure out where to go I think any of our Florida schools is a great landing spot.”

Florida State just three weeks ago announced its plans for approaching the new era of college athletics, debuting a program dubbed Apex. Students would have been able to take for-credit classes at the Jim Moran Institute for Entrepreneurship while also earning compensation through a partnership with INFLCR, a content-creation platform that assists schools, programs, and athletes in effectively monetizing and dispersing content.

Several high-profile athletes, including FSU’s McKenzie Milton and Camm McDonald, have spoken out about the issue: