Sponsors (2)
Official title: To protect the name, image, and likeness rights of student athletes, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 9, 2025 by Lisa C. McClain · Last progress June 9, 2025
The bill creates a uniform federal NIL framework that expands athletes' ability to earn, improves contract/agent protections and education/health supports, but also centralizes rulemaking with institutions and associations and imposes compliance costs that may limit pay, privacy, and benefits for some athletes—particularly those at smaller programs.
Current and future student‑athletes can earn money from their name, image, and likeness (NIL) without automatically losing federal Pell grants or other institutional grants-in-aid.
Colleges, conferences, and athletes get a single federal standard that preempts conflicting state rules, reducing cross‑state legal uncertainty about NIL and eligibility.
Student‑athletes receive clearer contract and agent protections: written contract requirements, limits on schools releasing contract terms, agent registration/disclosure, and parental consent for minors.
Student‑athletes may have substantially reduced earning power because conferences and institutions can limit or prohibit compensation, enforce eligibility rules, and those restrictions have limited legal challenge.
Colleges, athletic associations, and agents face new administrative and compliance costs (databases, registration, disclosures, medical coverage, reporting) that could be passed to students, taxpayers, or lead to cuts in other services.
Student‑athletes could be excluded from employee protections (wage/hour rules, benefits) because the law bars classifying participation alone as employment.
Based on analysis of 16 sections of legislative text.
Creates a federal framework protecting college athletes' rights to sign NIL deals, requiring written contracts, agent disclosures, anonymized reporting, education requirements, and preempting conflicting state laws.
Creates federal protections allowing college student‑athletes to sign name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals, limits institutions and conferences from banning NIL activity or representation, and sets minimum contract, disclosure, and agent‑registration requirements. The bill requires conferences and interstate athletic associations to establish registries and public, anonymized NIL-data databases to help estimate fair market value, conditions certain federal higher education funding on athlete education and grant protections, and preempts state laws that conflict with the Act. Implements written‑contract minimums and privacy protections, requires institutions to collect and share anonymized NIL deal data, mandates educational programming for scholarship athletes, provides liability protections for compliant institutions/conferences, and clarifies that a student‑athlete’s participation alone does not make them an employee of their institution or conference.