i doesn't still have a leg up on colleges & universities in other states even with regards to students not residing in Missouri yet. At least that's how it looks to me at the moment. I'm no attorney, though, and it would be interesting to hear from some who have studied it & know how it is playing out in real life situations.
Your quote left out some of the context from that page.
Throughout the NIL era, Missouri has been among the most aggressive states in removing barriers for student-athletes to profit off of their NIL. After the NCAA first permitted student-athletes to benefit from their NIL in July 2021, the Missouri legislature quickly enacted Section 173.280 into the Missouri Code. The original version of the statute allowed student-athletes not only to profit off their NIL, but also permitted them to hire agents and other advisors to help them maximize their NIL opportunities.
However, like many early state NIL laws, Section 173.280 included some restrictions on how student-athletes could benefit from their NIL. Most notably among these restrictions were prohibitions against any school official providing any NIL benefit or assistance to student-athletes. Additionally, any NIL benefits were restricted to student-athletes at the collegiate level (i.e., high school athletes could not benefit from their NIL without risking their college eligibility). The law was modified in August 2022 to allow some participation from school officials on behalf of college student-athletes, but several guardrails remained in place.
H.B. 417: Revising Section 173.280 and Taking the Next Step
H.B. 417 eliminates these barriers and then some. The amendment significantly expands Section 173.280 and, in many ways, goes further than other states in guaranteeing student-athletes’ NIL rights. The most significant changes include:
(1) the law will allow schools to actively participate in NIL deals;
(2) the law will allow high school athletes to receive NIL compensation from a Missouri institution once they have signed a letter of intent; and
(3) the law challenges the NCAA and others’ ability to enforce any NIL restrictions.
First, as amended, Section 173.280.4(b) allows coaches and other members of the school’s athletic department “to identify, create, facilitate, negotiate, support, enable, or otherwise assist” student-athletes in profiting off their NIL. Schools can capitalize by directing coaches and recruiters to work alongside businesses, NIL collectives, and other third parties to maximize recruits’ and current student-athletes’ NIL opportunities. Athletic departments may go one step further by establishing dedicated offices for the procurement and development of NIL opportunities and relationships. Effectively, athletic departments have been given the green light to maximize student-athletes’ NIL opportunities.
There are potentially some pretty significant advantages Mizzou would have over universities in other states.
Now we come to the portion where your excerpt came from:
Another significant change is the law now permits high school athletes to receive NIL compensation from a Missouri institution or related collective. This change is significant, as most other states’ NIL laws do not extend such rights to high school athletes. The law only extends to Missouri high school athletes who have signed a letter of intent with a Missouri institution. Though limited, this is a significant change and will likely provide a massive benefit to Missouri institutions.
The AI said that the law specifically mentions this only for high school athletes in Missouri, but does not specifically prohibit NIL for high school athletes who reside in other states. It concludes that this implies that they too could receive NIL compensation without penalty from Missouri. That sounds reasonable to me. Fortunately, your link included a link to the actual Missouri statute: https://documents.house.mo.gov/billtracking/bills231/hlrbillspdf/1211S.10T.pdf
It is a 29 page .pdf, but the first 7 1/2 pages are about adult high schools etc. & not really relevant to this discussion. NIL stuff relevant to us seems to begin on about page 15. As noted, I'm no attorney & I'm skipping portions that don't look relevant & may miss things, but it looks to me like they're specifically protecting Missouri high school students from losing high school eligibility for discussing NIL with universities and advisors etc. It also protects them for actually earning and receiving NIL benefits once they have signed a letter of intent with a Missouri University. So the protection would not apply if they earn or receive money from an out of state university. They could lose high school eligibility in Missouri for that. But I do NOT see anything prohibiting Missouri colleges from working with high school kids from other states and helping them to find and maximize their NIL opportunities. I also have not seen (yet) anything prohibiting them from starting up payments to out of state kids and that includes the university or coaches or whomever from paying them directly.
Out of state high school kids wouldn't have any protection from Missouri laws with high school eligibility in their own states, of course. That would depend upon the laws in their own states. We saw that Matt Zollers received a car via NIL prior to his senior year in high school, but Pennsylvania law apparently allows that. It seems to me that Missouri law allows us to arrange NIL for him or even provide it directly to him... which would be a marked contrast to the laws in other states, giving us a significant advantage over them... more so in some states than in others.
See the post below http://tigerboard.com/boards/view.php?message=19140967 regarding NIL laws with respect to high school students. Many, including Illinois allow high school students to receive NIL. But even in states where an athlete couldn't receive NIL prior to the end of their high school season without losing high school eligibility, it looks likely that Missouri could be counseling them and working with them to set up such deals. It wouldn't be prohibited under Missouri law as far as I can tell. Theoretically they could even decide, "F it" and take some big bucks and forego some or all of their high school eligibility if that was agreeable to both them and Mizzou. ... or so it seems to me.
Edited by JeffB at 21:08:25 on 07/22/24