Newsletter, Image, Likeness Vol. 120: What's The Deal With States Proposing Income Tax Relief For College Athletes?
Darren Heitner
Founder of HEITNERLEGAL — Sports, Entertainment, Trademarks, Copyrights, Business, Litigation, Arbitration
The Weekly Longer NIL Thought.
The States of Georgia, Alabama, and Illinois each have lawmakers who have decided to introduce legislation that would provide a unique monetary benefit to college athletes participating within their borders.
Those legislators would like to give athletes a tax break.
Specifically, legislation in the aforementioned states contemplates making college athletes a special class exempt from paying income tax on monies received related to NIL transactions.
"The reality is, we're going to collect more tax revenue when Illinois football is successful," said Travis Weaver, who sponsored the Illinois bill. "We're going to sell a heck of a lot more tee shirts and baseball caps, and we're going to have more people staying in our hotels, and they go to the U of I for games. So I think we got to continue to be competitive in sports, and we've got to keep up with what other states are doing."
I have recently wondered whether it would result in pushback from "normal" civilians in both jurisdictions who would not enjoy the same income tax relief. But, of course, there's also a legal angle to consider.
As pointed out by Michael McCann , the highest court in the U.S.A. has previously determined that these types of state tax laws violate equal protection if the exclusions are not reasonable. McCann refers to a 1985 decision in the case of Hooper v. Bernalillo County Assessor, where SCOTUS held that an exemption for Vietnam War veterans who were residents of New Mexico by 1976 was not equitable because it excluded veterans who moved to the state after that calendar year.
But if the state can show that the exclusion (here for college athletes) furthers a legitimate state purpose, then it could pass the smell test.
The bottom line is that if this legislation goes anywhere, it will likely result in legal challenges.
American Arbitration Association Issues Guidance For NIL Disputes.
It's a great forum for adjudicating disputes outside of court. (I am an American Arbitration Association arbitrator, so I am biased.)
Here are their NIL supplementary procedures:
Here's some detail on the cost of NIL arbitration:
And here's the due process guidelines:
Wisconsin Hires Marcus Sedberry, Ed.D. As Football GM.
Washington Hires Former NFL Agent Cameron Foster As Senior Director Of Contracts And Cap Management.
NFLPA Issues Memo About New Pathway Sports Effort To Handle Licensing Of College Players In Video Games.
Blueprint Sports Acquires SANIL To Form 1 Agency For Payments To College Athletes.
“As we started to grow, build tech, build data, analyze data, we knew the logical solution to meet the needs of our clients was to partner with somebody at scale,” said SANIL CEO Chris Brown . “Now we have a big tech platform, a national infrastructure to meet the needs of advertisers and brands and then data that will help to help our clients with future decision making, and be able to look at that data and predict how much money they’re going to need to deploy.”
It Looks Like Texas Tech Has A Lot Of Money To Keep Spending On NIL.
This Has To Be A Joke . . . Right?
North Dakota Decides To Not Opt In To The House Settlement.
And finds it odd that "The NCAA is requiring that we declare whether we plan to opt in by March 1, while the lawsuit's settlement will not occur until April 7."
West Virginia Has Bill Introduced To Allow Schools To Pay Athletes Directly.
Final Thoughts.
That is it for Vol. 120 of Newsletter, Image, Likeness. Thanks to the more than 9,670 people who have subscribed to this newsletter thus far, and please feel free to share this free resource with others on LinkedIn or elsewhere.
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Plaintiff's Lawyer & Sports Agent Malpractice ? Legal Ethics & Professional Responsibility Issues ? College Athlete Rights Advocate
1 周Two thoughts: First, the worst professional union, the NFLPA, which could organize P4 college football, but won’t, now sees its overreaching in licensing to be at risk, since it claims to require players to assign their NIL, which a union may not do as far as I understand labor law. Second, not part of your newsletter, but hanging out there, the federal district court hasn’t remanded South Dakota’s case against the NCAA in regards to requiring a membership vote on the Fake Settlement? back to state court, federal courts are supposed to decide those motions quickly, so the failure to remand this case, which clearly lacks federal jurisdiction, indicates to me that the federal district court is going to wait to see if the FS is approved, and if it is, the court intends to dismiss the case as moot without ever determining whether it has jurisdiction. This will set up a states’ rights constitutional crisis, if the state court ignores the federal one, pretends the case was never removed, and declares the NCAA’s settlement offer to be void and unenforceable under a national injunction. Then we’ll get to watch a cascade of courts holding each other in contempt. DJT will side with the states, I think. Peace.