In a unanimous 13-0 ruling yesterday, a Florida High School Athletic Association board voted to allow high school student athletes to receive NIL payments beginning this fall. The move comes almost three years after the NCAA finally cleared the way for college student athletes to receive NIL money.
NIL, the abbreviation for name, likeness, and image, permits student athletes to seek out businesses and/or individuals to help with financial needs, similar to a sponsor. While there will be no shortage of outcry that the move will further divide the talent gap in some situations, the decision was, in this writer’s humble opinion, the right way to go.
Let the bidding wars commence in the State of Florida, as high school athletes can now profit off their name, image and likeness.
The NIL recruiting in this state will be fascinating to watch unfold, and let’s not act like it won’t happen.
Read: https://t.co/okEB7eUrAi pic.twitter.com/e3y6w7xjUa
— Trey Wallace (@TreyWallace_) June 4, 2024
Raising money for high school athletes is difficult. Long gone are the days of car washes and candy drives to help young athletes finance their dreams. Average families feel the hurt on their bank accounts when they have a young football player, let alone more than one, that has a multitude of needs entering a sports season. Healthy food, supplements, training equipment, trainers/independent workout coaches, cleats, and even weights have all surged in price. The student athlete’s ability to pay for these things without the financial strain affecting their families is invaluable.
Now that Florida high school athletes can participate in NIL without losing eligibility, the list of state associations that prohibit it is down to 14.
It will soon be 13 states.
So, where is NIL still prohibited for HS athletes?
Updated story: https://t.co/pDcP5NqQhm pic.twitter.com/GQYxfoEHXK
— Jeremy Crabtree (@jeremycrabtree) June 4, 2024
The new rule goes into effect just in time for the 2024-2025 year, but it is not without rules and restrictions. Students and their parents are solely responsible for securing NIL arrangements. Student athletes will not be allowed to use their school’s image, name, or logo in connection to their NIL deals, creating separation between the deal and the school itself.
An important note: The FHSAA NIL Guidelines will not allow “NIL collectives”, an obvious decision to try and stop organized groups with private donors/collection efforts to mass raise money with the intent to hoard disproportionate numbers of top tier recruits. The rules also prohibit high schools from using NIL money to lure athletes to their programs. Athletes transferring mid-year will not be the wild west landscape that it is in NCAA, requiring high school athletes to obtain a “good cause exemption” before receiving NIL deals after an in-season transfer. Violations of the rules of Florida NIL will result in a formal warning and termination of the agreement on a first offense, and a one-year ban in the event of a second offense.
As with any new system revolving around young athletes, it will take time to round out the rough edges and fine tune the details. There are surely going to be entire coalitions of high school coaches and administrators that do not want to see Florida High School athletics become the chaos the NCAA has seemingly become. For every detractor, though, there are many more in favor of this decision.
Board member Sara Bayliss, a counselor at Saint John Paul II Catholic in Tallahassee was quoted after the ruling; “It’s not pay-for-play per se, but I think we’re trying to avoid what’s happened on the collegiate side.” She continued that she didn’t “think it would be used widely” and if the time came that NIL became a recruiting problem “we’ll deal with it”.
Within hours, student athletes were cashing in on their newfound ability to earn from their personal brands.
Top-100 2025 wide receivers Jaime Ffrench and Vernell Brown have inked NIL deals with American Eagle, hours after the FHSAA passed bylaw changes to allow NIL????
???? via @southflaexpre@PeteNakos_: https://t.co/kaQSWzz3p3 pic.twitter.com/o8YHQlxQFT
— On3 NIL (@On3NIL) June 4, 2024
Some coaches are, understandably, nervous and uneasy by the decision. One Florida football coach said he could see the potential of “if there is a star player and there’s a university out there that wants him, now that university has the ability to funnel money to that kid, to get him to whatever university”.
There was also significant outcry from many online that the way for NIL had been cleared for high school athletes, yet coach and teacher pay was still stagnating, which is a fair argument in most cases. Notably, the Florida Coaches Coalition Twitter/X account posted how the coaches seemed to feel overall.
#NIL has passed in Florida. While we are fully supportive of student-athletes monetizing their name, image, and likeness; we have always advocated that coaches should have been paid first.
We'll have situations where some athletes will be paid more than their coaches in public…
— Florida Coaches Coalition (@PayFLCoaches) June 4, 2024
That is a real concern and one that will be incredibly tricky to navigate and police. There will be bad faith actors involved at some point. There will be violations. There will be mistakes made, both by student athletes and sources of NIL money. However, the benefits to these young people will far outweigh the drawbacks. The ability to provide themselves with the best nutrition, training regimen, and equipment will not only reduce strain on families and bolster the athlete, it will increase the quality of the sport being played across the board.
There are certainly challenges ahead as the Florida High School athletics landscape adjusts to this landmark ruling, but overall I would say this is a big win for high school student athletes.
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