Utah Legislators Mull Bill That Would Add Perks for NIL Donors

Legislators in Utah have proposed a new bill that would incentivize donors for giving money to NIL collectives. 

According to The Salt Lake Tribune, Rep. Jordan D. Teuscher (R-Salt Lake) has proposed a new bill which outlines what would and would not be allowed by student-athletes and universities in regard to NIL. The bill also gives donors a path to receiving perks for helping collectives get better and more lucrative deals for student-athletes. 

Teuscher said that several NIL collectives reached out to him with concerns that their donors felt they weren't getting enough in return for their donations.

“One of the gaps that they saw is that a lot of donors wanted to get booster credit for the donations that they were making to the collectives,” Teuscher told The Salt Lake Tribune, “so that they could get ... some sort of personal benefit beyond just altruistically wanting the teams to perform better and being able to pull in better athletes.”

The bill specifies that it would not limit or prevent “a collective from creating a loyalty points program to recognize or provide benefits to donors.”

Utah doesn't currently have its own law governing NIL, instead deferring to the NCAA's policy. 

Teuscher said that in order to add perks for donors, it made sense to draw up a complete policy for Utah as part of the process. 

“What we were trying to do was just put in statute what the current situation is in alignment with NCAA rules and what the different universities have done,” Teuscher said.

H.B. 202 also outlines that a student-athlete would need to disclose an NIL deal to the university, and that the student-athlete and business would need to “comply with state licensing requirements” as well as the school’s policies and procedures.

Teuscher said he had student-athletes' best interests in mind while crafting the bill. 

“My whole intent with this whole thing is just making sure that our athletes are not at any disadvantage because we haven’t clarified anything in our state law,” Teuscher said. “If we don’t need to clarify anything, I’m totally fine with that. But that’s kind of the process we’re working through.”