Ohio high schools to vote on OHSAA name, image and likeness/NIL proposal

Two months ago, Ohio High School Athletic Association media relations director Tim Stried was watching the Super Bowl at his brother-in-law’s house in Bluffton when he saw a commercial for a local basement waterproofing company featuring several football players from Lima Senior High School.

The ad was fine as far as the OHSAA was concerned — with one caveat.

“High school student-athletes right now can appear in commercials as long as they’re not getting paid,” Stried said.

That could change next month.

Nineteen years after LeBron James was declared ineligible by the OHSAA for accepting $845 worth of throwback jerseys, the organization’s member schools will vote on a proposal that would allow student-athletes to cash in on their name, image and likeness, or NIL.

If approved by a simple majority, student-athletes will be able to sign endorsement agreements so long as their teams, schools and/or the OHSAA logo are not used and provided there are no endorsements with companies that do not support the mission of education-based athletics (casinos, gambling, alcohol, drugs, tobacco).

The proposal mirrors the changes made at the collegiate level last year, which have already led to athletes signing six- and seven-figure deals with brands and marketing companies. Eight states have already passed laws allowing NIL rights to high school athletes — California, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Alaska, Kansas, Louisiana and Utah — and more are considering it.

“The thing I’ve tried to stress is that putting this up for a vote does not mean the OHSAA fully embraces and likes NIL at the high school level,” Stried said. “Shoot, most of us — me included — don’t even like NIL at the college level. But the courts have spoken, and this is not going away.

“Either we can try to shape this by- law and have schools voice their input so they can shape it as well, or we can have the courts do it for us.”

Here are four things to know about the proposal:

There’s no guarantee it will pass.

Issue 12B is one of 14 potential changes member schools will vote on during the annual referendum voting period, which runs from May 1 to May 16. Most referendum items pass easily, but this one is drawing comparisons to the OHSAA’s competitive balance proposal, which failed three straight times before passing in 2014.

The organization is holding six information meetings for school administrators this month, with the Northeast District meeting set for Monday, April 25, in Cuyahoga Falls. Several school administrators contacted for this article either declined comment or didn’t respond at all, in part because they’re still undecided on how they’ll vote.

“It’ll be interesting to see how the state votes on this,” said Desiree Powell, the director of interscholastic athletics for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. “I’m still trying to process it myself.”

Powell attended an informational meeting last week in Columbus, and “when I left there, I was still a little foggy about how I really feel about it,” she said. The rest of her staff will attend the April 25 meeting.

“There are still just a lot of questions,” she said.

“I think everyone is kind of all over the place with it,” added Canton McKinley athletic director Joe Bogdan. “I think the actual intent of the bylaw makes sense because what it really does is spell out all the things the student-athletes can’t do for NIL. It pretty much protects the school from being used in a way it doesn’t want to be used.”

Most deals will be small.

James’ mother, Gloria, famously took out a bank loan in 2003 to buy her son a $50,000 Hummer for his 18th birthday. The OHSAA cleared the family of any wrongdoing in that case, but the organization stripped him of his eligibility days later for accepting two vintage sports jerseys, violating the state’s bylaw on amateurism. He quickly regained his eligibility — and led Akron’s St. Vincent-St. Mary to that year’s Division II state basketball title — but high-profile prep athletes like James would be free to capitalize on their fame under the NIL proposal.

Thing is, very few high school athletes even approach his marketability. That’s why, if the proposal passes, Stried expects 99% of the NIL deals to be for $100 or less.

“There are a lot of medium and small towns across Ohio with a local pizza shop or car dealership or ice cream parlor, and I could see a lot of those places utilizing local high school student-athletes to promote their company on a student’s social media platform,” he said. “I grew up in Marion, and I think the McDaniel’s (GM) dealership would utilize a well-known high school athlete in a heartbeat. They could say, ‘Here’s $100. Push the McDaniel’s graphic on social media.’

“I think that could happen a lot.”

There is potential for abuse.

Here’s a hypothetical scenario. Let’s say there’s a hotshot eighth-grade basketball player in Cuyahoga County who hasn’t yet decided where he’s going to attend high school. Could an NIL deal persuade him to attend one school over another?

“Unfortunately, that could happen,” Stried said. “Now, if there is any evidence that a student-athlete was persuaded or recruited to go to a school, that’s not permitted. But that’s difficult to prove and hard to catch. I call that that unintended consequence of NIL. It’s already happening at the college level.”

The flip side of this argument is, high-profile athletes are already getting these kinds of incentives. There are plenty of stories about a star quarterback’s father suddenly getting a job in a different school district and moving his family within its boundaries. Or a standout point guard transferring to a new school and, coincidentally, walking around with the latest pair of Air Jordans or an iPhone 13.

“If you’re worried about bad actors being turned loose and doing all these deals, those people are already doing things that aren’t good for kids anyway,” Bogdan said.

The OHSAA can’t afford a lengthy court battle.

In January, a class-action lawsuit was filed against the Florida High School Athletic Association for prohibiting student-athletes from capitalizing on their NIL.

As a nonprofit organization still recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic, the OHSAA can’t afford that kind of fight.

“The Florida association is spending thousands of dollars to fight this battle in court, and what are the odds they’re going to win?” Stried said. “The case has already been tried in court. The NCAA already lost. How does Florida think it’s going to win? Maybe Florida has tens of thousands of dollars to fight in court, but we don’t. I can tell you that much.”

Which brings this story back to the original point — schools can either define the NIL terms or, possibly, have them defined for them.

“We might end up with something that doesn’t fit what we want to be doing,” Bogdan said. “So if this (bylaw) is something that helps us protect kids and give them guidance and education, at the end of the day, that’s a good thing.”