Georgia NIL law will have zero effect on Clemson football and recruiting

A new Georgia law designed to allow athletes to profit off their name and likeness may end up having the reverse effect and could have more athletes coming to programs like Clemson football instead of staying “home” at places like the University of Georgia or Georgia Tech.

The initial thought is that signing this law would hurt Clemson football in recruiting but when you start to read the law, you see issues contained within that could actually have the opposite effect.

Part of this new law signed earlier this week is that student-athletes in the state of Georgia will be able to profit off their name and likeness starting July 1st, however, the law also says that schools can take up to 75 percent of what athlete profits and enter that into a pool in order to pay other non-profiting athletes in the University.

While some may say that 25 percent is still better than zero, athletes are not going to make millions on this, and with the tax issues that are going to become a headache, you won’t see many athletes make their college decisions because of this law change in Georgia.

Clemson football will be just fine regardless

Even with the new NIL law taking effect in the state of Georgia, this still will have very little effect on what happens with recruiting and Clemson football.

Fact is, most student-athletes are not going to make money off of their likeness.

Businesses simply aren’t knocking down the door of 17 and 18-year-olds in order to pay them to represent their products. This is something that has been completely overblown by those worried about college football becoming “professionalized”.

We saw this happen when the NCAA allowed schools to start paying all athlete’s cost of attendance difference. Fans flocked to social media and sports talk shows to talk about how schools like Miami, UCLA, and USC would have the advantage because Miami and LA are more expensive cities and they have a higher payout for the cost of attendance.

Instead, what we have seen is the rise of schools in smaller cities like Tuscaloosa, Athens, Clemson, and Norman.

At some point, every state in the country will have similar laws as college athletics continues to evolve.

Change is inevitable regardless of what we do in life and Clemson football will adapt like anyone else. Schools like UGA and Georgia Tech cannot sign more than 25 a year and still cannot have more than 83 scholarship players in a season – except for 2021 when the NCAA gave a waiver to all schools because of covid.