No athlete-agent statute2 primary sources

How do you become a registered athlete agent in Arkansas?

Arkansas has no athlete-agent registration system at all — as best our research can determine, it never adopted the UAAA or Revised UAAA, and no Secretary of State registration program exists. The only agent provision is one sentence inside the NIL act: an 'agent, athlete agent, financial advisor, or attorney who is providing professional representation of a student-athlete shall be licensed, as applicable, in this state' — apparently pointing to whatever license governs the representative's own profession (law license, securities registration), with NO dedicated athlete-agent license for anyone else to hold. The act covers COLLEGE athletes only, has no prescribed warning, no cancellation right for the representation contract itself, and NO criminal penalties — enforcement is a civil action with punitive damages and fees.

Verified July 19, 2026 by LeadCo editorial review

Registration at a glance

Registration required
No
Registering body
None found — no dedicated athlete-agent registration program exists (best-effort finding; see notes)
Fee
Not established
Term
Not established
Surety bond
Not addressed
Covers high school athletes
No
Reaches NIL / marketing-only reps
Yes
Prescribed contract warning
No

How to register

Arkansas does not operate a registration system for athlete agents. What its law requires instead is described below — read the statute section carefully, because "no registration" does not mean "no rules."

Contract & notification requirements

  • No prescribed warning text
  • No statutory cancellation right for the agency/representation contract
  • Disclosure duty: the professional representative must disclose the relationship and full contract terms to a designated official of the athlete's college, 'within a time period and in a manner designated by the institution' — no fixed statutory deadline (§ 4-75-1306(b))
School notification required
No
Athlete cancellation right
None for the representation contract itself. A student-athlete may rescind a PUBLICITY-RIGHTS contract without breach liability once no longer enrolled/eligible/participating in college athletics (§ 4-75-1305(c))

What the statute is silent on

Silence is not permission and not prohibition — the statute simply does not address these.

  • any registration body, fee, term, or bond (no scheme exists to be silent about)
  • high school athletes entirely (definition is college-only)
  • criminal penalties (none in the act)

Penalties

NO CRIMINAL PENALTIES exist in the act. Civil only — § 4-75-1308 (verbatim, abridged): "An institution of higher education or a student-athlete... has a cause of action for damages against an athlete agent or third-party licensee if... adversely affected by an act or omission... in violation of this subchapter... only if, because of the act or omission, the institution of higher education or student-athlete: (A) Is suspended or disqualified from participating in an intercollegiate sport; or (B) Suffers financial damage... a prevailing plaintiff may recover punitive damages, reasonable attorney's fees and costs, and any other reasonable litigation expenses."

(Whatever underlying professional license 'as applicable' points to — e.g., unauthorized practice of law — may carry separate criminal exposure under other statutes; not verified.)

Stated as the statute states it. Read the cited section before relying on this.

Statute

Ark. Code Ann. §§ 4-75-1301 to -1308 (Arkansas Student-Athlete Publicity Rights Act; Act 810 of 2021, eff. Jan. 1, 2022; amended by Act 589 of 2023)

'Student-athlete' (§ 4-75-1302(7)) means an individual 'enrolled at an institution of higher education' or admitted/NLI-signed — HIGH SCHOOL NOT COVERED, and 'athlete agent' is never defined. BEST-EFFORT NEGATIVE: no separate UAAA chapter and no SoS registration function could be found after a genuine multi-source search, but Arkansas's official free code portal is a JS-only Lexis session that defeats automated verification — confirm by a manual Lexis Title 17 search or a direct ask to the Arkansas SoS before treating 'no registration program' as settled fact.

NIL interaction

The entire act IS the NIL act — the one-sentence licensing clause (§ 4-75-1305(a)) is the only agent regulation. § 4-75-1305(b): institutions may not prevent or penalize an athlete for obtaining professional representation. Restricted NIL categories at § 4-75-1307(b).

Sources

  1. Act 810 of 2021 (Arkansas Student-Athlete Publicity Rights Act) — enrolled Act PDF (April 21, 2021)
    An agent, athlete agent, financial advisor, or attorney who is providing professional representation of a student-athlete shall be licensed, as applicable, in this state.
  2. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-75-1302 (definitions) (April 11, 2023)

Change history

  • July 19, 2026 — Initial publication from primary-source research pass (statute text read directly; penalties quoted verbatim).
Not legal advice. This page documents publicly available rules and is not legal advice. Rules change, and associations do not always announce changes. Confirm anything you rely on with the governing association, your school compliance office, or your own counsel before acting.

Spot an error? Tell us and cite the statute.

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