With name, image and likeness at the prep level quickly spreading across the United States, North Carolina High School Athletic Association representatives met with the State Board of Education on July 31 about what to consider should NIL be allowed for the state’s high school athletes.
Alongside a slideshow presentation, NCHSAA Commissioner Que Tucker and Tod Morgan, the chair of the NCHSAA NIL Committee, spoke about what they’ve found in the NIL policies of other states, including potential concerns and solutions, and what an NIL policy would mean for high school sports.
One of the biggest points from the presentation is what an NIL policy wouldn’t be.
“It’s not about pay to play,” Tucker emphasized in the meeting. “It’s about using your name, your image and your likeness because you own it.”
Morgan emphasized a need to separate NIL on the college level, which has been a major factor in recruiting talent, to NIL on the high school level.
“We’re just trying to put something in place that would protect our student-athletes across our state and yet give them an opportunity to make a side business, entrepreneurial-type venture using their name, image and likeness,” Morgan said.
Based on the NCHSAA’s research, Morgan said the average high school NIL deal was between $60 and $120 with three to four hours of time committed to the deal.
“Very few, I mean less than 1%, are that high, high level of student-athlete that is going to be big time,” Morgan said.
Opportunities to make money also comes with opportunities to make either good or bad decisions when it comes to a player’s financial standing or eligibility. For those concerns, Tucker and Morgan talked about the importance of implementing resources that would best inform students and their families about the implications of a deal.
“When we looked at all of this, we talked about financial education,” Tucker said. “We want to make sure that our student athletes are not being exploited. You want to make sure that in any type of a situation that our students find themselves in, and it seems unethical, that there is the opportunity for the students and their parents to discuss it.”
Said Morgan, “I think we have to have some parameters in place to make sure there’s accountability and make sure there’s transparency as Commissioner Tucker talked about, so that the principal, athletic director and the coach of the school is aware of these things going on.”
With the current high school NIL landscape in North Carolina and the states that border it, student-athletes now have more reason to leave their schools for the opportunity to make money.
The State Board of Education banned public school athletes from participating in NIL activities with a new amateurism policy adopted in June, affecting the NCHSAA which governs hundreds of public schools.
The new policy didn’t affect the North Carolina Independent Schools Athletic Association, though, which did approve an NIL policy for the 2024-25 school year in February.
This difference in NIL policy has brought concerns about more athletes, especially the top talent, moving away from local public schools and going to NCISAA private schools for monetary reasons. However, Tucker said in the meeting that’s not the point of the NCISAA’s NIL policy.
“(The NCISAA) are like us,” Tucker said. “They are not interested in their schools recruiting (students) to come and play here and leave that school. That’s not how their policy is set up, and it’s not set up so that that independent school will be able to say to (students), ‘We’ll pay you this amount of money.’ Now, the independent schools can say to (students), if you come to us, there will be some opportunities for you to sign an NIL deal.”
Other states could also provide outside opportunities as Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia, three states that border North Carolina, all have policies that allow public school athletes to profit off of NIL.
According to Nick Stevens at HighSchoolOT, the State Board of Education is expected to consider a permanent ruling on NIL as early as September.
“NIL policy would follow years of discussion,” Tucker said. “That’s what we’ve done. We have listened to our sister states across the country, and our membership has said we need to do something so that we’re not caught trying to catch up to an issue that is in place.”
