On September 14th, 2020, New Jersey passed a Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) law for their colleges and institutions. New Jersey will see the legislation go live, effective in the fifth academic year following the date of enactment. Governor Phil Murphy signed State Bill 971 allowing intercollegiate student athletes the ability to earn compensation for the use of their NIL.
Bill
Status
Signed Into Law
Effective
Date
6/1/2023
NCAA
Institutions
27
Estimated
NCAA Athletes
8,100
High School
NIL Legislation
Yes
Last Updated 08/22/22
Senate Bill 971:
An Act concerning student-athletes at certain institutions of higher education and supplementing chapter 3B of Title 18A of the New Jersey Statutes.
Be It Enacted by the Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey:
1. This act shall be known and may be cited as the “New Jersey Fair Play Act.”
2. a. A four-year institution of higher education shall not:
(1) uphold any rule, requirement, standard, or other limitation that prevents a student of that institution participating in intercollegiate athletics from earning compensation as a result of the use of the student’s name, image, or likeness.
Except as otherwise provided pursuant to subsection b. of this section, earning compensation from the use of a student’s name, image, or likeness shall not affect the student’s institutional scholarship eligibility. An institutional scholarship shall not be considered compensation for the purposes of this act and a scholarship shall not be revoked as a result of a student earning compensation or obtaining professional representation;
(2) provide a prospective student-athlete with compensation in relation to the student-athlete’s name, image, or likeness; or
(3) prevent a student participating in intercollegiate athletics from obtaining professional representation in relation to contracts or legal matters including, but not limited to, representation provided by athlete agents or legal representation provided by attorneys.
Legal representation obtained by student-athletes shall be from attorneys licensed by the State. Athlete agents representing student-athletes shall comply with the federal “Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act” (15 U.S.C. s.7801 et seq.) in their relationship with student-athletes.
b. Notwithstanding the provisions of subsection a. of this section to the contrary, a student participating in intercollegiate athletics shall be prohibited from earning compensation as a result of the use of the student’s name, image, or likeness in connection with any person, company, or organization related to or associated with the development, production, distribution, wholesaling, or retailing of: adult entertainment products and services; alcohol products; casinos and gambling, including sports betting, the lottery, and betting in connection with video games, on-line games, and mobile devices; tobacco and electronic smoking products and devices; prescription pharmaceuticals; a controlled dangerous substance; and weapons, including firearms and ammunition.
Earning compensation from the use of a student’s name, image, or likeness in connection with products and services listed pursuant to this subsection shall result in the revocation of the student’s institutional scholarship eligibility.
3. A four-year institution of higher education, an entity whose purpose includes supporting or benefitting the institution or its athletic programs, or any officer, director, or employee of the institution or entity, shall not compensate or cause compensation to be directed to a current or prospective student-athlete participating in intercollegiate athletics for use of the student’s name, image, or likeness.
4. a. A student-athlete who enters into a contract providing compensation to the student-athlete for use of his name, image, or likeness shall disclose the contract to an official of the four-year institution of higher education, to be designated by the institution.
b. A student-athlete shall not enter into a contract providing compensation to the student-athlete for use of his name, image, or likeness if a provision of the contract:
(1) conflicts with a provision of the student-athlete’s team contract; or
(2) conflicts with the provisions of subsection b. of section 2 of this act.
c. An institutional team contract shall not prevent a student-athlete from using the athlete’s name, image, or likeness for a commercial purpose when the athlete is not engaged in official team activities.
d. An institutional team contract shall allow the institution, athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics to use the athlete’s name, image, or likeness for advertising and marketing purposes without additional compensation paid to the student-athlete.
e. An institution asserting a conflict pursuant to subsection b. of this section shall disclose to the student-athlete and to the student-athlete’s professional representation the relevant contractual provisions that are in conflict.
5. This act shall take effect immediately and shall first be applicable in the fifth academic year following the date of enactment.
Now that Student Athletes will have the ability to profit off of their name, image and likeness, they have to remain conscious about certain thresholds that could have certain tax consequences. Specific to the State of New Jersey:
The New Jersey NIL Law is known as the “New Jersey Fair Play Act” and it allows collegiate student-athletes to earn compensation for use of name, image, or likeness.
New Jersey NIL started on July 1, 2021, per the NCAA Interim Policies and with the passage of State Bill 971, New Jersey State NIL laws will take effect in the fifth academic year following the date of enactment.
New Jersey NCAA Student-Athletes will be able to earn compensation for the use of her or his name, image, or likeness (NIL) through a multitude of different opportunities. Student-Athletes can now make money for things such as endorsements, sponsorships, appearances, autographs, memorabilia, podcasts, camps, clinics, private lessons, crowdfunding, and many more!
Both athletes and administrators in the State of New Jersey should start by making sure they have a proper understanding of the rules and regulations set-forth by State Bill 971. A working-knowledge of the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ for New Jersey NIL will allow all parties to safely and successfully navigate the new landscape. The next most important aspect would be the compliance component of NIL. Not only do students need to make sure they are entering agreements that are compliant with the passed state regulations, but they need to make sure they are transparent with their school to avoid any institutional conflicts.
All institutions with NCAA athletic programs are affected by NIL. In the state of New Jersey, the following schools will be affected:
D2
D3
Looking Only for Spry Connect?
SpryConnect is an administrative platform for NCAA, NAIA and NJCAA athletic departments. A modern platform with messaging, department wide calendars, and workflow features, SpryConnect will move your Athletic Department forward by revolutionizing the way we think about compliance and communication.
NIL implementation is uncharted territory and Spry is here to act as your GPS.
Spry is the top collegiate sports compliance solution. Manage your compliance operations and NIL processes on one streamlined platform built to communicate effectively through the entire athletic department.
For the latest developments in compliance, sign up for our email newsletter. View Privacy Policy
This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.
OKLearn moreWe may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.
Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.
These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.
Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.
We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.
We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.
We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.
Google Webfont Settings:
Google Map Settings:
Google reCaptcha Settings:
Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:
You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.
Privacy Policy