According to an emergency rule that was approved by a state board on Wednesday, public universities in the state of Florida have the ability to free up $22.5 million annually to compensate student-athletes.
This is in preparation for a landmark legal settlement that will allow schools to pay their players through licensing deals.
Schools will be able to directly pay their players for the use of their name, image, and likeness as a result of the massive antitrust settlement that is worth $2.8 billion and will go into effect on July 1.
It has caused universities all over the country to scramble for new revenue streams in the hopes of gaining an advantage — or at the very least keeping pace — in the rapidly evolving and highly competitive field of college athletics.
This is causing the way college sports have been managed for more than a century to be completely transformed.
Public universities in Florida, which is home to some of the most prominent college sports teams in the country, will now have the ability to draw from the funding reserves of campus auxiliary programs such as bookstores, food service, student housing, and parking in order to reduce the amount of money that is given to student-athletes.
The policy that was approved on Wednesday allows for the funds to be distributed either as a transfer or as a loan.
“Athletic departments are already currently recruiting student-athletes for fall 2025,” said Alan Levine, vice chair of the board of governors, which is in charge of overseeing Florida’s state universities. “They need clarity on the available funding to retain and recruit the best talent for their rosters,” Levine said. “If the universities cannot react to the settlement immediately, there will be irreparable harm to the athletic programs and to the financial welfare of our institutions.”
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As soon as the emergency rule is implemented, it will remain in effect for a period of ninety days, after which the board of governors will have the opportunity to reevaluate the situation.
Because of deficiencies in their athletic departments, other schools are also taking action to address the circumstances.
At the same time that the athletics department at the University of Kentucky started making direct payments to athletes, trustees gave their approval to an operating loan for the department that was worth $31 million.
While this is going on, Louisiana is getting ready to raise taxes on sports betting in order to inject more than 24 million dollars into the state’s athletic departments.
At the same time, Arkansas made history by becoming the first state to exempt athletes from paying state income taxes on payments made by higher education organizations.
