GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we talk about the new likeness rule that could go into affect in Florida soon.
Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre are joined by Darren Heitner to get more insight into what the likeness rule would mean to college athletes.
Andrew and Nick talk to Heitner to see what he thinks of the rule and how it could change things up for schools like Florida.
TRANSCRIPT:
Andrew:                 What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, here with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, we’re back. As we promised yesterday, going to have a special podcast. We’re going to talk to Darren Heitner. Does a lot of things with, is it just football? Football and basketball, right?
Nick:                         Yeah. I think it’s going to be basketball as well. We’ll talk to him about it, because it seems like it’s kind of vague and open-ended. Darren is a double Gator and teaches as an adjunct professor at UF law school. He’s kind of spearheaded and helped kind of lead the charge to try to figure all this stuff out. He is much smarter than you and I, and this stuff is right up his alley.
Andrew:                 What Nick is talking about is the whole new NCAA thing that is being voted on.
Nick:                         Image, likeness.
Andrew:                 Yeah. It’s supposed to be voted on middle of the month, right? May 15, I think.
Nick:                         The NCAA kind of said that they’ve kind of agreed to it, but they need to vote on it.
Andrew:                 Right.
Nick:                         It wouldn’t go into effect until 2022, but the state of Florida has already passed legislature about it. It just has to be signed by the governor. That’ll go into effect before. That’s something I also wanted to talk to him about.
Andrew:                 California’s already done it.
Nick:                         California and Florida have already done it. Yeah.
Andrew:                 So, you’re getting several different states doing that, so it’ll be interesting. I’m interested to talk to Darren about this, but I just don’t know where this goes. You know what I’m saying? Does it go deeper? Like does it get so deep that now you’re paying everyone, or is going to be just the Tim Tebows of the world or the Percy Harvins, the big name jerseys that are sold, that kind of stuff? There’s just so many questions. I think that Darren should be able to answer it. Then here’s the thing, I don’t even know if Darren can answer it all, because I think there’s so many question marks. To be honest, when the NCAA does rule on it, are they going to rule on everything, or is going to be kind of a trial by error? I think, in a way, that’s what’s going to happen.
Nick:                         Yeah. The way that it was kind of released by the NCAA, and I think Darren took some exception to the way that they kind of worded things, and we’ll get his opinion on that. It’ll be interesting to see how it’s implemented, for sure.
Andrew:                 I’ve said this before. Do I think college guys deserve to be paid? Yes, but I think it opens up a can of worms that I’m just not sure we’re ready for. Like you said, Darren’s a lot smarter than us, so we’ll talk to Darren about it. Then we’ll come back on and wrap up what Darren has to say after he talks. Maybe you and I both will have a better perspective of what’s being said.
Nick:                         Let’s go. And we’re bringing a double Gator and an adjunct UF law professor, Darren Heitner. He is the founder of Heitner Legal, and really has kind of taken it upon himself and taken charge in what we’re going to talk to today and about the rights of student athletes. Darren, it’s a pleasure for us to have you here. We were excited to bring on someone who is much more knowledgeable about this than we are, so thank you for joining us.