On August 31th, 2021, California passed a Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) law for their colleges and institutions. California will see the legislation go live, effective September 1, 2021. Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 26 allowing intercollegiate student athletes the ability to earn compensation for the use of their NIL.
Bill
Status
Signed Into Law
Effective
Date
09/01/2021
NCAA
Institutions
59
Estimated
NCAA Athletes
17,100
High School
NIL Legislation
Yes
Last Updated 08/22/22
The People of the State of California do enact as follows:
(a) On September 27, 2019, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 206 of the 2019–20 Regular Session, a bill by Senator Nancy Skinner and Senator Steven Bradford, at a signing ceremony hosted by LeBron James, a lead proponent and advocate for the legislation.
(b) Senate Bill 206 made California the first state in the nation to enact a law to restore to college athletes a right everyone else has: the right to earn compensation from their name, image, and likeness (NIL), or athletic reputation.
(c) After Senate Bill 206 was signed into law, at least 30 other states initiated plans to introduce similar laws, and 17 states have enacted them. The NIL laws of the States of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and New Mexico take effect first, on July 1, 2021.
67456. (a) (1) A postsecondary educational institution shall not 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, likeness, or athletic reputation. Earning compensation from the use of a student’s name, image, likeness, or athletic reputation shall not affect the student’s scholarship eligibility.
(2) An athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics, including, but not limited to, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, shall not prevent a student of a postsecondary educational institution participating in intercollegiate athletics from earning compensation as a result of the use of the student’s name, image, likeness, or athletic reputation.
(3) An athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics, including, but not limited to, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, shall not prevent a postsecondary educational institution from participating in intercollegiate athletics as a result of the compensation of a student athlete for the use of the student’s name, image, likeness, or athletic reputation.
(b) A postsecondary educational institution, athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics shall not provide a prospective student athlete with compensation in relation to the athlete’s name, image, likeness, or athletic reputation.
(c) (1) A postsecondary educational institution, athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics shall not prevent a California 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.
(2) Professional representation obtained by student athletes shall be from persons licensed by the state. Professional representation provided by athlete agents shall be by persons licensed pursuant to Chapter 2.5 (commencing with Section 18895) of Division 8 of the Business and Professions Code. Legal representation of student athletes shall be by attorneys licensed pursuant to Article 1 (commencing with Section 6000) of Chapter 4 of Division 3 of the Business and Professions Code.
(3) Athlete agents representing student athletes shall comply with the federal Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act, established in Chapter 104 (commencing with Section 7801) of Title 15 of the United States Code, in their relationships with student athletes.
(d) A scholarship from the postsecondary educational institution in which a student is enrolled that provides the student with the cost of attendance at that institution is not compensation for purposes of this section, and a scholarship shall not be revoked as a result of earning compensation or obtaining legal representation pursuant to this section.
(e) (1) A student athlete shall not enter into a contract providing compensation to the athlete for use of the athlete’s name, image, likeness, or athletic reputation if a provision of the contract is in conflict with a provision of the athlete’s team contract.
(2) A student athlete who enters into a contract providing compensation to the athlete for use of the athlete’s name, image, likeness, or athletic reputation shall disclose the contract to an official of the institution, to be designated by the institution.
(3) An institution asserting a conflict described in paragraph (1) shall disclose to the athlete or the athlete’s legal representation the relevant contractual provisions that are in conflict.
(f) A team contract of a postsecondary educational institution’s athletic program shall not prevent a student athlete from using the athlete’s name, image, likeness, or athletic reputation for a commercial purpose when the athlete is not engaged in official team activities. It is the intent of the Legislature that this prohibition shall apply only to contracts entered into, modified, or renewed on or after the enactment of this section.
(g) For purposes of this section, “postsecondary educational institution” means any campus of the University of California, the California State University, the California Community Colleges, an independent institution of higher education, as defined in Section 66010, or a private postsecondary educational institution, as defined in Section 94858.
(h) This section shall become operative on September 1, 2021.
In order to ensure that California postsecondary educational institutions and college athletes are not placed at a disadvantage to those in other states where name, image, and likeness laws will go into effect this year, and in order to ensure that California college athletes, including low-income student athletes and those with children and dependents, can adequately provide for themselves and their families, it is necessary that this act take effect immediately.
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 California:
This bill, the Fair Pay to Play Act, would make these provisions operative on September 1, 2021, and would make them applicable to the California Community Colleges. The bill would prohibit California postsecondary educational institutions and every athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics from providing a prospective intercollegiate student athlete with compensation in relation to the athlete’s athletic reputation, or preventing a student participating in intercollegiate athletics from earning compensation as a result of the use of the student’s athletic reputation. The bill would prohibit an athletic association, conference, or other group or organization with authority over intercollegiate athletics from preventing a postsecondary educational institution from participating in intercollegiate athletics as a result of the compensation of a student athlete for the use of the student’s athletic reputation. The bill would prohibit the revocation of a student’s scholarship as a result of earning compensation for the use of the student’s athletic reputation.
California NIL started on July 1, 2021, per the NCAA Interim Policies and with the passage of Senate Bill 26, California State NIL laws also took effect on September 1, 2021.
California 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 California should start by making sure they have a proper understanding of the rules and regulations set-forth by Senate Bill 26. A working-knowledge of the ‘Dos and Don’ts’ for California 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 California, the following schools will be affected:
D1
D2
D3
NAIA
NJCAA
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