Ohio State football will not be falling behind its counterparts in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, New Mexico or Texas regarding a statewide bill that will allow collegiate athletes to profit from their name, image and likeness rights. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine announced Monday that he will be signing an executive order to enact the bill at 2:30 p.m. today.
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith and president Kristina Johnson, both of whom have been significantly involved with the creation and proliferation of the bill, will be in attendance, as will former Ohio State quarterback Cardale Jones, and state Sen. Niraj Antani (R-Miamisburg), who introduced the original bill to the Ohio state Senate in May.
Notably, DeWine has not yet announced if the bill will be effective starting July 1, as the bills in those other seven states will, though that seems to be the expectation and was the original goal of Antani’s bill. There are also no details yet on what this means for Antani’s original bill or the deeply modified version of it that left the Ohio house of representatives following a late amendment from state Rep. Jena Powell (R-Arcanum). Ohio State did not support that bill, which would include a ban from allowing transgender girls to play in girls high school sports.
“Ohio State supports a clean name, image and likeness bill, like the bill passed by the Ohio Senate, which will support all student-athletes across Ohio,” school spokesman Ben Johnson told Eleven Warriors.
