Of the 350,000 Ohio High School Athletic Association student-athletes, only 32 name, image, or likeness deals have been reported, according to OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute.
He recently testified as an interested party on a bill that would ban high school and middle school athletes from making NIL deals. Both people in favor of and those opposed to Ohio House Bill 661 spoke during Ohio House Education Committee Meetings this month.
State Reps. Adam Bird, R-New Richmond, and Mike Odioso, R-Green Twp., introduced H.B. 661. Ohio is one of 45 states that allows high school athletes to have NIL deals.
“Roughly half of those involve commission-based arrangements tied to promotional codes shared on social media platforms,” Ute said. “Of the remaining agreements, the vast majority consist of modest combinations of products and limited compensation, with a total value generally under $1,000. These opportunities allow students, who also happen to be athletes, to explore legitimate entrepreneurial opportunities within carefully established, education-based guardrails.”
Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said it’s a complex issue.
“If a local business decides to pay all the kids who go to one high school in a city who want to play on this high school’s football team, I don’t know how ultimately you can control that,” he told reporters Wednesday. “You can put limits on that and attempt to enforce it, but it makes it even harder.”
Proponent testimony
St. Xavier High School Football Coach Steve Specht spoke out in favor of the bill, but clarified he is not against NIL.
“What I am against is pay-to-play,” he said. “And I think my biggest concern with NIL in the high school level is, where does the money come from? …Where are the guardrails at the high school level?”
Mason City Schools Superintendent Jonathan Cooper said the bill would allow Ohio to look at the long-term impacts for students and ultimately create a policy “that reflects both opportunity and protection.”
“Rather than reacting to momentum, our state can thoughtfully shape a model that protects student-athletes, preserves educational priorities, and sets a responsible example nationally,” he said. “If we don’t have the proper guardrails and the thoughtfulness around this, I think what we could possibly produce is unhealthy behaviors that actually place our kids into more dangerous situations than we really can even anticipate today.”
H.B. 661 does not close doors for student-athletes, but rather it creates space, Cooper said.
“Space to build safeguards,” he said. “Space to ensure that any future direction reflects the educational purpose of high school athletics.”
Opponent testimony
NIL at the high school level is not like NIL at the college level, said Luke Fedlam, a partner at the Columbus law firm Amundsen Davis and co-chair of Entertainment, Sports, and Media Law practice group.
“When people hear NIL … we immediately start to think and picture the college marketplace, booster collectives, transfer portal incentives, six and seven figure deals, conference and television contracts in the millions of dollars,” he said. “That environment does not exist at the high school level and it is not pay to play.”
Ohio state Rep. Phil Robinson, D-Solon, asked what the downside would be if middle and high school students could not receive NIL compensation.
Talented student-athletes could leave Ohio, Fedlam said.
“Student-athletes, especially in border cities, could go to Michigan, they could go to West Virginia, they could go to Pennsylvania or Kentucky, and be able to earn that compensation by just simply moving across the border,” he said.
Eugene Miller, a former state rep. who is running as a Democratic candidate for Ohio House District 20, spoke out against the bill.
“If you have somebody in the band, the band person can make money on the side,” he said. “If you have someone who’s a DJ, they can make money on the side. Why should we punish athletes based on their likability by eliminating NIL opportunities?”
Ohio High School Athletic Association
A Franklin County judge issued a temporary restraining order preventing the OHSAA from enforcing its ban against high school athletes benefiting from NIL in October.
Jasmine Brown had filed the lawsuit on behalf of her son Jamier Brown, an Ohio State Buckeyes football commit from the Dayton area.
He is a top-ranked wide receiver from Wayne High School in Huber Heights who is transferring to Big Walnut High School in Sunbury for his senior year.
Brown, a member of the class of 2027, has missed out on more than $100,000 in potential deals, according to the lawsuit.
In November, high school athletic association member schools passed an emergency referendum allowing NIL. In that referendum, 447 schools voted in favor of athletes receiving NIL deals, 121 schools voted against it, and 247 schools abstained.
“I think it’s very safe to assume that those who abstained did so because they were a no vote,” Bird said. “I think that it is very clear to me and others who are listening to school leaders across the state of Ohio that this is that we’re going down a path that schools in Ohio do not want to go.”
Ute, however, said he does not consider the schools that did not vote abstentions.
“They just didn’t vote,” he said.