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Name, Image, Likeness: What to know about NIL deals coming to Florida high school sports

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  • The Florida High School Athletic Association voted to pass the NIL bill, allowing high school student-athletes to profit from Name, Image, and Likeness.
  • The decision will go into effect prior to the beginning of the 2024-25 high school season in Florida.
  • With Tuesday’s decision, Florida became the 36th state to allow student-athletes to profit off of their name, image, and likeness.

Welcome to the NIL era of Florida high school athletics.

In a unanimous decision, the Florida High School Athletic Association voted to pass the NIL bill, allowing high school student-athletes to profit from Name, Image, and Likeness.

It will be quite a bit of change for Florida high school sports before the 2024-25 season begins.

More: Will NIL in Florida make it harder for public schools to compete with private schools?

NIL for Florida high schools: What is it and what does it mean?

An acronym for “name, image, and likeness,” NIL is a legal concept that allows college and now high-school athletes to profit from their personal brand.

Product endorsements, such as posting branded advertisements on social media and appearing in television commercials will allow athletes to profit.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association previously prohibited this monetary avenue for college athletes, but that changed after a Supreme Court Case in 2021.

In years that have followed, states have individually sought their own paths in allowing or restricting such monetary gain for student-athletes, and the trickle-down effect has made it to high-school athletics in reason years.

As of October 2023, 30 states as well as the District of Columbia allowed high-school athletes to profit from NIL deals. With Tuesday’s ruling, Florida follows 35 others states in the decision to allow such profitability.

This will go into effect prior to the beginning of the 2024-25 high school season in Florida, meaning that the impacts of this ruling could be felt in a matter of months.

What was the first state to allow high school NIL?

California was considered the first state to allow NIL deals at the high-school level, though that came with a trade-off.

By accepting money in high-school, student-athletes would be ineligible to play to play in college, though that rule was changed when the National Collegiate Athletic Association approved college athletes profiting from NIL in 2021 following the Supreme Court Case of NCAA vs. Alston.

Since then, there has been a dramatic wave of movement in which individual states have followed suit, allowing NIL deals at the high school level.

In fact, with Tuesday’s decision, Florida became the 36th state to allow student-athletes to profit off of their name, image, and likeness.

Can you receive NIL money in high school?

With Tuesday’s ruling, student-athletes may officially make money off of product endorsements using their own name, image, and likeness — but it isn’t without caveats.

Student-athletes will not be able to use their school’s name, logo, or uniform without consent from their school district, and NIL deals must be negotiated by athletes and their parents or guardians without the school’s involvement.

Product and service endorsements such as guns, drugs, alcohol, and gambling are off-limits.

Furthermore, schools and boosters cannot attempt to entice student-athletes to their programs with the promise of NIL deals. High-school athletes that transfer during the season won’t be allowed to secure an NIL agreement that year without a Good Cause Exemption granted by the school district.

Alex Peterman is the high school sports reporter for The Palm Beach Post. He can be reached at apeterman@gannett.com.

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