Potential impacts of NIL proposal on high school sports in NC

Nov 25, 2023

HighSchoolOT managing editor Nick Stevens joined the Adam Gold Show on Tuesday to discuss the possible effects that the NIL proposal before the NCHSAA board of directors could have on high school sports.

But possibly with high school athletes and name, image and likeness. Nick Stevens, managing editor, High School O T joins us on the Adam Gold Show. All right, sir. So explain to me how this is going to work and what the steps are before we get to, you know, some uh high school football player being able to earn some money being a high school football player from a third party. Yeah. Well, first it's gonna pass the N C H S A Board of Directors and that vote is probably gonna happen tomorrow. Uh There may be some discussion on that this afternoon which we'll have live for you on high school O T but the vote will happen tomorrow. Uh If it passes this policy will go into effect on July 1st of this year. And basically what they're doing is they're putting in guidance and guard rails for high school athletes because I mean a Adam, I don't know if you agree with this, but I I've been saying this for a while now this is a matter of when, if that this comes here. Uh So you get out in front of it, you put some guidelines in place. They're gonna have to, uh, all the athletes and coaches and administrators are gonna have to go through annual, uh, education about N I L, uh, through the N F H s. Uh, they're gonna have to report any of, uh, any N I L deals to the school. The school is gonna have to report that to the N C H S A A. Uh, and there's restrictions on what type of products they can be involved in. So, you know, things that you wouldn't see kids uh generally promoting or want to see kids generally promoting, they're not gonna be allowed to be involved in those products. So, um you know, it's just putting uh some guidance in place that allows kids to profit off their name, image and likeness. Uh if that's something that they're able to do, which is an open question. Uh and uh you know, and, and hopefully protect them and provide some uh some guard rails. All right, the whole, the whole guard rail thing is just, it blows my mind because we probably don't need guard rails. But um the whole, all the products, all of these things, I mean, we're talking about adult sites and alcohol and vaping and all of these things that honestly we are, the kids are not gonna get caught up in. Um because most people in this area have some sense. Uh but I understand why they put them in just in case, uh, you know, uh, like a gambling site wants to get involved with a sixteen-year-old kid. Uh, but ultimately what we're dealing with here is my guess is these kids being able to make a, you know, if you're a big, if you're a, you know, as a high school star, you can make an appearance, uh, at a local, I don't know, uh, pet store and, and, you know, sign puppies and that they can give you like 500 bucks or whatever, uh, whatever it is to do that, uh, or, uh, be a counselor at a camp which they wouldn't otherwise be able to do. Of course, high school kids are allowed to hold summer jobs. No. Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, they can work during the season. Um, the, you know, the, the, the example I give all the time is what you're probably gonna see a lot of is small town, North Carolina, uh, the starting quarterback or something is gonna go have a meal at a small town restaurant that's owned by a, you know, a mom and pop shop in, in small town, uh, here in North Carolina and they're gonna get a free meal in exchange for posting that on, on Instagram or something. You know, it's, it's not, you're not gonna see, you know, guaranteed $25,000 from the N I L Collective and physical sports like it's not going to happen. And another very common misconception that we're seeing on Twitter ever since we broke this news yesterday is where is all this money coming from? We can't even pay our coaches and our schools, the schools are not paying any of this money. Uh, and, and I think people have that, uh, misunderstood if a kid makes any money. And again, that is a big open question whether or not there's even any demand for this in the marketplace, uh, that's coming from the third party business or whoever uh that, that, that is gonna make something off of the, the, the player's name image and likeness. So, you know, there, there's some common mis misconceptions out there right now and I think a lot of that's just how it was rolled out at the college level overnight. Yeah, we're um every everybody's so like jumpy over what this is gonna look like. Nick Stevens, managing editor High School O T is joining us here. I did see uh uh you know, one of the uh graphs in your story about this that they, it can't be used as a recruiting induce, but you're not allowed to recruit right in high school, even the schools like Gibbons, which has been a kind of accused in the past of recruiting air quotes. Uh you're not allowed to do that. So of course, uh you wouldn't be allowed to use this as an inducement anyway. And let me, let me just say, you know, we're going through the the board of directors stuff right now. And this is just one topic that, that the board is addressing this week. But in here they have, uh, incident reports and, uh, you know, violations and stuff. There is a school in North Carolina that their coach has been suspended 365 days for promoting enrollment at their school. Um, so when stuff like that happens and that's happening without an I L by the way, but when stuff like that happens, there are penalties in place uh that, that are used. Uh So, you know, if, if you, I also kind of object to the whole premise that there's gonna be a bunch of boosters and local community supporters that are going to be paying a bunch of kids because they just really want to win that high school baseball game so bad. Um But, you know, um maybe, I don't know, uh I, I don't know what it's like to have that much money. So I just, I don't think that we're gonna see all of these doomsday things happen. And by the way, we're actually in the minority nationally. Uh when it comes to this 27 of the 51 state associations have already approved an I L for high school athletes and all still have functioning high school associations and functioning sports. They should, they absolutely should. I mean, look, uh let's just say there's a batting cage out there that you want to, you know, pay like five ball players who have some name recognition, maybe the five best ball players in the area, uh, to come on out and give ten-year-old kids a clinic on how to hit. Uh, why can't you do that? You'd have parents coming out for, uh, you'd have hundreds of parents bringing their kids out. It's great for business. It's good for these kids. It's good for the little kids too. And I can tell you, I've already heard from one professional athlete from this state who's like, hey, I want to pay some of the top players to come work at my youth camp. You know, they come back into town and host these youth camps, uh all the time and now they can bring in the current high school players and pay them and, you know, that gives them access to a professional athlete that can help them through these processes. Remember, remember when Chris Archer used to have his camp, uh, out in Clayton, you know, I mean, there's, there's several in, in many different sports all over the place. All right, let me ask you one more thing. This has nothing to do with N I L but, uh, I know they're talking about a final four, uh, in the basketball tournament, like getting the final four together in one site. Is that, was that what I'm, uh, supposed to understand? That is something that they're going to discuss. It's not expected that there's gonna be any voting on that, uh, at this meeting. Um, we've had issues in the past where there's not enough uh, seats for the number of people who want to come to the, uh particularly the regional final games. We try to state semifinals. Um And so one of the things that they're gonna talk about, uh, this week and this may happen later today actually, uh is whether or not going to a final four format would work better. And they've compared how they do things here to some other states. There are states that do that format uh in the Southeast. Uh And so that's one thing they'll discuss is having them all in one location that's gonna get a lot harder in a few years when we move to, you know, at least seven classifications. Um But uh at least for the next couple of years that that would work if they want to move to that. So, uh that's an interesting conversation. Yesterday was the first I had heard about it. So I like it, by the way, any uh any question as to whether or not the N I L thing will pass. Um I think that there's a question, you know, there, it's an issue that people uh have mixed reactions to. I would certainly not say it's a done deal. Uh Just reading how this has been proposed though and they've already put together guidance to issue to schools and amending their amateur rule and all that stuff. Um, if I had to guess I would guess this has a decent shot at passing this week. Um, but I wouldn't say it's a done deal by any means. Nick Stevens, managing editor. High school O T. Nick. I appreciate your time. My friend, I'll talk to you soon. You got it.