Here’s why NCHSAA public school athletes could get NIL rights by the fall
Last month, the N.C. Independent Schools Athletic Association announced that its private school athletes would have access to their name, image and likeness rights beginning this fall.
The news sent shockwaves through the state’s high school sports landscape, because those rights would not apply to public school athletes in the N.C. High School Athletic Association.
The questions began: Would public school athletes transfer? Would private schools — not bound by attendance lines — have another advantage over their neighbors?
Not so fast.
Monday, N.C. State Sen. Vickie Sawyer, a Republican who represents Iredell and Mecklenburg County, told The Observer that the N.C. Board of Education plans to propose NIL rules for public school athletes to the state’s Rules Review Commission. If adopted, Sawyer said students within the NCHSAA should have similar access to NIL rights as their private school counterparts will have.
That action could come as early as this fall, Sawyer said.
Sawyer also called private schools gaining access to NIL “an advantage” over their public school counterparts.
“This is just another advantage that is a problem,” Sawyer said, “but I believe that the school board and the high school association have a path forward.”
NCHSAA commissioner Que Tucker was not aware of the policy discussion, but said she welcomed it.
“Students own their name, image and likeness,” Tucker said, “and if they can profit from that without being exploited and without losing their eligibility, I applaud it. That’s what we were trying to do last spring, not set up a system where a student is paid to play, but help them become educated about NIL and try to help, for some, as they transition to the next level. But it became an issue when other folks didn’t understand what we were trying to do, and without talking to us, made some inaccurate assumptions.”
Last May, the NCHSAA Board of Directors announced a policy that would’ve brought NIL rights to student-athletes just a few weeks later.
N.C. politicians, including Sawyer, shut the measure down barely a day later with a bill that also eventually stripped the state association of much of its power and threatened its very existence.
In her Observer interview, Sawyer talked about what led to those political decisions.
“I don’t want the high school athletic association, which is a third-party organization whose job is to make sure the train runs on time, to make those decisions,” she said.
Will NIL make a difference?
Sawyer said she looks forward to having a policy in place, and having the NCHSAA help administer the new rules. She said she never wanted to dissolve the association.
“That was, quite frankly, a fear tactic put out there by others,” Sawyer said. “My AD from (Winston-Salem’s) Parkland High School is in the (NCHSAA) Hall of Fame. I still have my high school letter jacket with my scholar-athlete stuff. But what I saw when I started pulling back the layers of the onion, it made me sick to be honest with you. I felt like they had just gone a little bit over their skis.
“I don’t envision life without the N.C. athletic association. That’s never been my goal...We just put them back in the box they were meant to be in.”
Sawyer said changes surrounding the association will include oversight of its actions as well as revisions to things like how penalties and fines are handed out.
But she said she most certainly wants public school students to have access to NIL.
Tucker also said she believes it’s needed to keep the playing field level. She said she was worried that the NCHSAA could lose athletes to private schools in the absence of a similar policy.
“I think everybody understands that what we did in the spring of ‘23 was, our board wanted to put something in place that would help our student-athletes,” Tucker said. “Ultimately, the legislators and the bill that was passed made it very clear that we do not have the authority to put such a policy in place.”
How would NIL actually affect high school athletes?
For most students, the new NIL policy is not likely to have a big effect, advocates say. The NCHSAA’s research last year showed that nationally the average NIL deal was worth $60 to $100.
And most kids are probably not going to be asked to sell biscuits for the local Bojangles’ in the first place.
“I think you’re talking about an elite sub-section of kids that are going to benefit from NIL at the high school level,” said Chad Grier, head football coach at private Providence Day in Charlotte, a national power. “I’m a huge supporter of anything good for kids.”
Grier coaches David Sanders, an offensive tackle who is ranked as the nation’s No. 1 recruit in the class of 2025. Sanders, who is represented by a national marketing agency, recently posted a collaborative ad with Gatorade on his Instagram page.
Grier said he would love to see NIL for NCHSAA athletes, who often have a greater financial need.
But as Grier notes, most schools don’t have a player like David Sanders.
“The truth of the matter,” Grier said, “is the rank and file kid won’t get an NIL deal. There’s no opportunity for the school to create an NIL because (in the NCISAA), a school can’t be part of it. It’s much to do about nothing. If an NIL opportunity comes along, get all you can get, but I don’t think for the typical high school kid that’s it’s going to be anything substantive.
“I’d love to see kids get new cleats or gloves and some kids need money to survive. If you’re at (a lower income public school), maybe you can put together a program for the soccer team where we’ll feed these guys or provide after-school tutoring support. I’d love to see those kinds of deals happen. But I just don’t think the average high school football or basketball player, with few exceptions, will get it.”
— Correspondent Alex Bass contributed to this story.
This story was originally published February 12, 2024 at 3:52 PM.
