Louisiana is Poised to Hike its Sports Betting Tax to help Colleges

Louisiana is poised to hike taxes on sports wagering to pump more than $24 million into athletic departments at the state's most popular public universities.


Legislation pending before Gov. Jeff Landry would make Louisiana the very first state to raise taxes to money college sports since a judge authorized a landmark settlement with the NCAA permitting schools to straight pay professional athletes for use of their name, image and likeness (NIL). Anticipating the court's approval, Arkansas this year became the first to waive state income taxes on NIL payments made to professional athletes by greater education institutions.


More states appear almost certain to embrace their own creative ways to acquire an edge - or a minimum of keep up - in the rapidly progressing and extremely competitive field of college sports.


"These bills, and the unavoidable ones that will follow, are meant to make states 'college-athlete friendly,'" stated David Carter, creator of the Sports Business Group consultancy and an accessory teacher at the University of Southern California. But "they will no doubt continue to stir the debate about the' viewed 'favoritism afforded athletes."


The new NCAA rules permitting direct payments to college professional athletes start July 1. In the first year, each Division I school can share as much as $20.5 million with its professional athletes - a figure that may be easier to fulfill for big-time programs than for smaller sized schools weighing whether to divert cash from other purposes. The settlement also continues to enable college professional athletes to receive NIL money from 3rd parties, such as donor-backed collectives that support particular schools.


The Louisiana legislation won final approval just 2 days after a judge authorized the antitrust settlement in between the NCAA and professional athletes, but it had been in the works for months.