BATON ROUGE — The Senate Commerce Committee advanced a bill Tuesday that would extend protections for high school and college student-athletes in Name, Image, and Likeness contracts.
NIL programs allow student-athletes to receive compensation from third-party companies for the use of their personal brand, including their name, photos, videos, and voice in social media posts or promotional content.
J.T. Curtis, head football coach at John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge, told the committee that NIL deals, once exclusively a college issue, have extended into the high school ranks.
Curtis, who holds the record for most career victories by a prep football coach in the U.S., told committee members that student-athletes as young as eighth grade are being taken advantage of by agents who are "selling the kids to universities."
"They're being directed; they're being lied to," Curtis said. "They've been told the grandeur of what is available without any expertise or understanding of law, without understanding contracts, with no limitation on the amount of compensation."
Senate Bill 389, by Sen. Patrick Connick, R-Marrero, would provide regulatory oversight of endorsement contracts and require agents who represent student-athletes in Louisiana to register with the Louisiana Department of Justice's Public Protection Division, complete training, and pass background checks.
Under the bill, the public protection division could deny registration renewals and revoke an agent's certificate if he or she has engaged in fraud or caused harm to student-athletes or their schools.
Currently, only 102 agents are registered in the state, most of whom represent professional athletes. Advocates of the bill told the committee that some unregistered agents are working with student-athletes without any qualifications. Current state law covers only agents who negotiate contracts for professional athletes.
"Professional agents have come to the high school NIL space, but you also have this new class of rogue agents who could be a cousin, a neighbor, a friend who just graduated who thinks they can negotiate a contract on these athletes' behalf with no preparation and really no knowledge," said Olivia Nuss, former NIL lawyer and current assistant to the Louisiana attorney general.
"The biggest risk to athletes was loss of eligibility," Nuss added. "Now, the biggest risk to athletes is agents who are unprepared or may be negotiating without the proper knowledge, expertise or registration requirements."
Sen. Stewart Cathey, R-Monroe, told the committee that people would be shocked by how many high school students are receiving NIL deals.
"I know of kids in north Louisiana, where I'm from, who are making more during football season than their head coach will make the entire year," Cathey said.
Nuss told the committee that this legislation would bring Louisiana in line with 22 other states, including Alabama and Delaware, that have enacted provisions to protect student-athletes and have since seen agent registrations increase.
According to Curtis, the Louisiana High School Athletic Association, the regulatory body for high school athletic programs, could serve as a point of contact to inform high school athletes and their parents about the benefits and risks of the NIL environment.
"This is an important bill for the schools and for the students," Connick said. "It's going to protect the schools and athletic programs. It's going to demand accountability and enforcement, and it's going to put transparency in the NIL deals."
