Georgia

Georgia Allows Schools to Directly Pay Athletes for NIL

Published

1 year ago

September 17, 2024

Georgia Allows Schools to Directly Pay Athletes for NIL

Whether or not the House settlement is fully approved, Georgia’s colleges and universities can begin paying their athletes for their name, image and likeness immediately.

On Tuesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) signed an executive order that prohibits the NCAA or any athletic conference from punishing schools that directly compensate student-athletes for their NIL.

Currently, the NCAA does not allow schools to directly pay their athletes for the rights to their NIL use. However, the organization has agreed to remove the edict as part of a pending settlement that is still working its way toward court approval.

In a joint statement emailed to Sportico, Josh Brooks and J Batt, the respective athletic directors for Georgia and Georgia Tech, expressed their thanks to the governor for signing the order. “In the absence of nationwide name, image and likeness regulation, this executive order helps our institutions with the necessary tools to fully support our student-athletes in their pursuit of NIL opportunities, remain competitive with our peers and secure the long-term success of our athletics programs,” they said in the statement.

Georgia has joined Virginia in explicitly allowing colleges to compensate athletes for their NIL—a concept that is contemplated in the proposed but not-yet-approved settlement between the NCAA and attorneys for athletes to resolve the House, Carter and Hubbard antitrust litigations.

The Georgia law is less transformative than it might have been before the proposed settlement and before the NCAA announced it would no longer enforce amateurism restrictions in the context of NIL. The NCAA took that step during the spring after U.S. District Judge Clifton Corker, in Tennessee and Virginia v. NCAA, issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting the NCAA from enforcing rules that preclude college athletes and recruits from negotiating compensation for NIL with collectives and boosters.

As the NCAA moves toward a model where colleges in power conferences can directly pay college athletes for media rights, ticket sales sponsorships and NIL, the Georgia law seems to codify a concept that will soon be in play.

The Georgia law is also consistent with U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken’s concerns about restricting NIL opportunities for college athletes. She stressed in a recent hearing that she would not approve a settlement that takes away NIL opportunities for college athletes. The settlement currently contemplates a distinction between NIL deals that draw from use of athletes’ right of publicity versus those deals that are connected to collectives and boosters and appear to be more in line with pay-for-play. One proposed mechanism to enforce that distinction is the use of fair market value analysis in review of NIL deals. Whether that distinction can be consistently and logically applied is a source of industry debate.

It’s possible Wilken could cite the Georgia law in further deliberations with the attorneys. The parties have until Sept. 26 to send her a revised settlement. Should the settlement collapse or be rejected, the cases would return to the docket.

Kemp’s order comes as the University of Tennessee, an SEC rival of the defending football champion Georgia Bulldogs, announced that it will tack on a “talent fee” onto football tickets next season to help fund its revenue-sharing pool for athletes.

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Georgia

Georgia’s Iranian community reacts to death of Ayatollah Khamenei

Published

3 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

Georgia’s Iranian community reacts to death of Ayatollah Khamenei

ATLANTA – As conflict intensifies between the United States, Israel and Iran, reactions are pouring in across the Atlanta metro area after President Donald Trump confirmed the death of Iran’s supreme leader.

The president confirmed on Truth Social that Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in a joint strike led by the U.S. and Israel.

What they’re saying:

“I have been waiting to hear this news for the last 20 years,” said Dr. Sasan Tavassoli, an Atlanta-based pastor born in Iran.

“Ayatollah Khamenei has been responsible for the killing of tens of thousands of Iranians over the last three decades. He has been a very evil dictator and a very oppressive tyrant.”

Other local Iranians, like Shohreh Mir, expressed a long-standing desire for internal change rather than outside intervention.

“This was an imposed war,” Mir said. “We still very much would like for Iranian people to change the regime by themselves.”

What’s next:

Tavassoli said the Ayatollah’s death now creates a new issue.

“Ayatollah Khamenei never invested in raising a succession after himself,” he said, “so the crisis of the Iranian revolution and the Iranian regime is there is no legitimate successor.”

While the long-term duration of the conflict remains unknown, Iran has already begun launching retaliatory strikes following the attack.

“This is a huge development for day one, but the war is not over,” Tavassoli noted. “There are still many ways that things can become even more bloody and destructive in the coming days and weeks.”

The Source: Information in this article came from FOX 5’s Rey Llerena speaking with Iranian Americans across Georgia.

IranDonald J. TrumpNewsPolitics

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Georgia

Body found near Georgia Power dam on Radium Springs Road in Albany

Published

15 hours ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Body found near Georgia Power dam on Radium Springs Road in Albany

ALBANY, Ga. (WALB) – A person was found dead in the 5200 block of Radium Springs Road on Saturday morning, according to Dougherty County Coroner Michael Fowler.

Body recovered in early morning water rescue call(WALB NEWS 10)

Fowler said the call came in as a water rescue. The body was recovered early Saturday, Feb. 28.

The coroner confirmed the person found was male. His identity and age remain unknown.

Have a news tip or see an error that needs correction? Let us know. Please include the article’s headline in your message.

To stay up to date on all the latest news as it develops, follow WALB on Facebook and X (Twitter). For more South Georgia news, download the WALB News app from the Apple Store or Google Play.

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Georgia

Ga. lawmakers propose changes to state’s early voting process

Published

1 day ago

February 28, 2026

Press Room

Ga. lawmakers propose changes to state’s early voting process

ATLANTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – State legislators are considering more changes to Georgia’s voting law, proposing a new bill that would alter the way early voters cast ballots.

State Sen. Greg Dolezal, a Republican from Cumming, introduced SB 568 this week. The proposal would assign early voters to one precinct in their county. Currently, voters can cast early votes at any precinct in their county.

It would also move early voting to a hand-marked paper ballot system, where voters use a pen to mark their selections, instead of the currently used touchscreen system.

“So that we would not have to print so many permutations at the paper ballots, we would assign voters to an early voting location,” said Dolezal. “Most people are going to vote to the at the early voting location closest to their home anyway.”

The bill was immediately met with backlash from democrats as a barrier to the vote.

“I have no idea how voting on a piece of paper, marking it down with your pencil in any way suppresses the vote,” said Dolezal. “For most counties out of, you know, 140 call it out of 159, they just have one location.”

Dolezal’s proposal would also require local clerks to publicly post their entire voting rolls ahead of elections.

“Making public every single voter who is qualified to vote is to some extent, a little bit of an invasion of privacy for each individual voter,” said state Sen. Sonya Halpern (D-Atlanta). “We need to have trust in our election officials to run those elections.”

It’s the latest change the legislature has proposed to Georgia’s voting system.

“You have dirty, dirty voting rolls, you’re going to have dirty elections,” Dolezal said.

The bill would also shift responsibility for voter challenges from the counties to the State Elections Board. In addition, it would also move the threshold for an automatic recount in the state from a 1.5% margin to 2%.

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