After making splash in college sports, NIL coming to high school near you

Love it or hate it, NIL has arrived in Washington. 

Not familiar with NIL? It stands for name, image and likeness, and the term is seemingly everywhere since the NCAA approved its use by college athletes in 2021. While amateur players are not paid for their performance on the field, they can be paid by sponsors for use of their name, image and likeness to promote a product or cause. 

NIL has made its way into high-school sports, as 28 states, along with Washington, D.C., have given their approval for athletes to profit. 

Washington became the 20th state in October to clarify that high-schoolers can accept endorsement deals that use their NIL, with a few rules in place. Washington high-school athletes are forbidden from using their high school’s name, logo or uniform as part of their NIL deals. 

Other states are a bit more strict with their NIL bylaws. In Oregon and Virginia, high-schoolers cannot pitch products such as alcohol, tobacco, adult entertainment services, weapons, gambling or prescription drugs. In Oregon, students are also not allowed to campaign for political candidates. 

“We probably won’t think of everything, but we can provide some clarity in some areas that make sense,” Oregon School Activities Association (OSAA) executive director Peter Weber said. “That’s where we pulled things from other states, some of the restrictions on what students could promote, or in this case, not promote. We grabbed some of those from other states and thought, ‘Those things just make sense.’”

Washington does not have rules stipulating what an athlete can and cannot promote through NIL agreements, according to Washington Interscholastic Activities Association information director Casey Johnson. 

The WIAA says that NIL was never disallowed under its bylaws, and the rules laid out in October were simply a clarification and guidance for students, parents and administrators as NIL becomes more common. 

“Our [eligibility] rule has not had to change with NIL becoming prominent as a topic,” WIAA executive director Mick Hoffman said. “Our amateur-standing rule has always been that students can go out and work and financially benefit from that. They just cannot have it connected to their school in any way.”

For example, a high-school football player could sign an endorsement deal but wouldn’t be allowed to wear the school name, colors or logo in any kind of advertisement, though they would be allowed to wear a blank uniform, the logo of the company they are working with, or the logo of a club team they are affiliated with outside of school. The student would also not be allowed to reference any WIAA district or the state association during an NIL assignment.

The Virginia High School League (VHSL) released its regulations in early May, requiring athletes to inform their school’s athletic director within 72 hours of signing any NIL deal, and it, like every other state, prohibits them from using the school or districts’ “intellectual property.”

With a distinct minority of even college athletes taking NIL deals, VHSL executive director Billy Haun does not expect high-school NIL in his state to be widespread, estimating that the number will fall somewhere between 2-5% of Virginia’s student-athletes. He is aware of just two Virginia high-school athletes who have cashed in. 

“I really think most people are still unaware that this can and will happen in high schools,” Haun said. “I think a lot of people haven’t thought about that, but it has already happened. … So you know, it’s a good thing for us to be upfront, be proactive, and put this out there and help.”

When high-school NIL does become more mainstream, Haun expects most deals to be for relatively small amounts of money, nowhere near the millions of dollars that the big names such as LeBron “Bronny” James Jr. are pulling in. 

For most high-schoolers, think of something more along the lines of a partnership with the local pizza parlor or sporting goods store.

“A lot of the deals are going to be less than $1,000 per event, or even less,” Haun said. “I saw a report the other day, the median deal is somewhere between $62 and $1,000. If you look at the average, the average is high because you’ve got those deals for hundreds of thousands of dollars. But even at the college level, the median deal is not that price.”

David Meluni is an associate teaching professor in Falk College at the Syracuse University Department of Sport Management, and teaches a course about NIL. 

While he is personally enthusiastic about the future of NIL, describing it as “fantastic” that high-schoolers can finally make a bit of extra money off their own image, he is aware of some of the concerns that parents, coaches and administrators have. 

One potential problem Meluni foresees is jealousy between the NIL haves and the have-nots. With high-school sports being hyperlocal, and enrollment based on proximity to the school, egos could get bruised and friendships strained if one star athlete gets an opportunity from a local business that another teammate or a parent feels they deserve instead. 

When it comes to private and public schools, Meluni sees a possibility that boosters at private high schools could use NIL deals as a recruiting tactic to lure athletes.

“Those are things that these federations and associations are going to have to look at pretty closely, especially in high-school sports,” Meluni said. “… If you have a donor at that school that identifies a kid and says, ‘I’m going to do an NIL deal, and not only is that NIL deal going to pay for your schooling at this school, and we’re going to give you extra,’ that’s going to be hard for an association to be able to say prior, ‘Did we know or have knowledge that that is what is going on?'” 

Despite the potential hiccups, Meluni sees NIL as a valuable tool in brand building for high-school athletes. Along with deals with companies, Meluni said, athletes could make a difference through things like charity work.

“I think that’s an unspoken piece of NIL, even at high school, doing stuff for charity,” Meluni said. “I’m not saying you’re getting paid for that, but it’s really building your brand, and then you are going out there and learning how to do that, and being an entrepreneur. How cool is it to learn to be an entrepreneur at 15 years old?”

In Oregon, the first high-school NIL deals came within weeks of state approval last October, as Portland-based and University of Oregon basketball commits Sofia Bell and Jackson Shelstad signed endorsement deals with local apparel company Portland Gear.

For Bell, a senior at Portland’s Jesuit High School, it was a special feeling to blaze the trail as one of Oregon’s first high-schoolers to ink an NIL deal. 

“I think it was a really positive experience for me, primarily because I really liked the brand,” Bell said. “But then it also kind of gave me experience on how NIL deals work before I go to college, and I think that’s really important for athletes to understand because it can be pretty overwhelming.”

Bell has taken part in a few videos and photo shoots with Portland Gear, and also worked a bit with the Topps Trading Card company through her status as a McDonald’s All-American. 

“It was definitely uncharted territory for all of us,” Jesuit girls basketball coach Jason Lowery said. “But after that first day and initial announcement, I don’t know if it was ever even brought up again. So a lot of that is probably just Sofia’s maturity and handling it, and taking advantage of the opportunity, but it’s always keeping the main thing the main thing with her.”

Back in Washington, Lake Stevens football coach Tom Tri describes himself as “on the fence” about NIL, but said that it wouldn’t bother him if one of his players signed a deal. 

“It’s not going to change who we are or what we do,” Tri said. “I wouldn’t feel obligated to give that kid more touches with the ball or play that person more or promote that person in our program, things like that. … It would have very little, if any, impact from my perspective.”

Tri’s biggest concern with NIL is whether it will cause players to focus only on sports such as football or basketball, rather than play sports that don’t get as much NIL attention such as tennis, track and field or swimming.

“I’m pretty sure that it’s going to be pretty lopsided in the amount of money that college-football athletes and college-basketball athletes are making versus other sports athletes,” Tri said. “My concern there as a parent, and as a community member is you know, I want kids playing all the other sports.”

Hoffman is not aware of any Washington athletes who have signed any NIL deals yet, and there are no publicly announced high-school deals from the state listed on On3.com’s NIL deal tracker, but Hoffman knows that the day is probably coming soon. 

“I’m sure it’s going to continue to grow as people become more familiar with it,” Hoffman said. “There is going to be people out there who are going to try to make money utilizing students in that capacity, and there are going to be other people out there who are wanting to support students. So I would think that it will continue to grow.”

With loopholes likely to be exploited and rules tested, it’s only a matter of time until the rule book has to be revisited a time or two. 

“We certainly don’t anticipate that this is a one time, put a policy in and then come back to it 25 years later,” Weber said. “It’ll have to probably be adjusted as we move forward.”