A New, Yet Debatable, Reality at the High School Level
You may recall when the NCAA, back in 2021, allowed student-athletes to be compensated for use of their names, images and likenesses (NIL). It came as the association was facing legislation passed in several states that required colleges to allow such compensation. And that’s to say nothing of lawsuits against the NCAA over whether student-athletes should be paid at all.
Since, the idea has filtered down to the high school level. As of June 2024, over 30 state high school athletic associations have allowed NIL deals to go into effect, with the two most recent being Florida and South Dakota. Kentucky’s KHSAA joined that list the year before.
Paul Neidig
[photo by ihsaa.org]
Indiana, on the other hand, has yet to pass any NIL regulations as of this writing. That puts the IHSAA in the company of associations in such states as Alabama, Ohio and Texas. In a statement provided to GLICOD, IHSAA commissioner Paul Neidig gave his association’s views on the matter.
“It is our belief,” said Neidig, “that the collegiate model of NIL really does not work at the high school level, but the IHSAA will continue to study the topic as it relates to the IHSAA’s amateurism rules.”
What has made NIL a hot topic among high schools goes beyond the requirement that any contract offered to people under 18, such as an NIL deal, requires a parent to sign.
Some opponents of these rules have reportedly gone as far as saying that NIL would affect the purity of high school athletics. And it’s the kind of purity that stems from a tried-and-true statement emphasized by NFHS (the National Federation of State High School Athletic Associations), in which high school sports are “an extension of the classroom.”
[photo by khsaa.org]
Julian Tackett, the KHSAA commissioner, responded to us via a statement about this issue.
“While it is very true that athletics is the other half of education and definitely a classroom extension,” Tackett said, “That has no relation to NIL. For this reason, no state association currently allows high school students to profit off of NIL using their enrolled high school uniform, trademark or other intangible or tangible asset. We are extremely pleased with the cooperative spirit in which the NIL laws in our state were drafted, with the basic intent solely to prevent young, uniformed athletes and their families from being taken advantage of until they were old enough and signed to a collegiate letter of intent where helpful resources and full-time staff are available to ensure the proper guardrails are in place.”
True, extracurricular activities can teach student-athletes such life lessons as teamwork, leadership and respect. But what sort of lessons can student-athletes get if they benefit from NIL? Well, how about lessons in finance, economics and how to save money, as well as more complex topics like taxes and contracts? Lessons that athletes and their parents will learn as their schools’ coaches and administrators explain NIL in detail where it is being applied.
While I don’t think athletics, most particularly football and basketball are as big a business at high schools as it is with the major colleges, I do think the presence of NIL would have to be handled with care as the earning opportunities for these late-teen athletes present themselves.
Questions will still be raised, including but not limited to, some schools having certain advantages over others depending on how many players are signed to those NIL deals. At the very least, states like Indiana will, perhaps sooner rather than later, concede to accepting what may become high school sports’ new reality.
