BATON ROUGE – The Louisiana Senate unanimously passed a bill Tuesday that would provide protections for high school and college student-athletes engaging in Name, Image and Likeness contracts.

NIL programs allow student-athletes to receive compensation from third-party companies for the use of their name, photos, videos and voices in social media posts or promotional content.

Senate Bill 389 would provide regulatory oversight of endorsement contracts and require agents who represent student-athletes across the state to register with the Louisiana Department of Justice’s public protection division, as well as complete training and pass background checks.

The regulations are already required of professional agents, but the bill would be extended to anyone seeking to represent high school and college student-athletes in Louisiana.

The bill, by Sen. Patrick Connick, R-Marrero, also would allow the public protection division to deny renewals for an agent’s registration certificate and revoke an agent’s certificate of registration if he or she has engaged in fraud or caused harm to student-athletes or their schools.

The bill is set to be considered in the House.

On April 7, J.T. Curtis, head football coach of John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge, told the Senate Commerce Committee that NIL deals, once exclusively a college issue, have extended into the high-school ranks.

Curtis, who holds the record for most career victories by a prep football coach in the U.S., told committee members that student athletes as early as the eighth grade are being taken advantage of by agents who are “selling the kids to universities.”

“They’re being directed; they’re being lied to,” Curtis said. “They’ve been told the grandeur of what is available without any expertise and understanding of law, with understanding contracts, with no limitation on the amount of compensation.”