{"id":203197,"date":"2026-02-27T21:25:44","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:25:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=203197"},"modified":"2026-02-27T21:25:47","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T02:25:47","slug":"few-ohsaa-athletes-have-nil-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2026\/02\/27\/few-ohsaa-athletes-have-nil-deals\/","title":{"rendered":"Few OHSAA athletes have NIL deals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Megan Henry\/Ohio Capital Journal<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

COLUMBUS — 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRoughly half of those involve commission-based arrangements tied to promotional codes shared on social media platforms,\u201d Ute said. \u201cOf 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio House Speaker Matt Huffman, R-Lima, said it\u2019s a complex issue. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf 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\u2019s football team, I don\u2019t know how ultimately you can control that,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cYou can put limits on that and attempt to enforce it, but it makes it even harder.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proponent testimony <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

St. Xavier High School Football Coach Steve Specht spoke out in favor of the bill, but clarified he is not against NIL. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat I am against is pay-to-play,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd I think my biggest concern with NIL in the high school level is, where does the money come from? \u2026Where are the guardrails at the high school level?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 \u201cthat reflects both opportunity and protection.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRather than reacting to momentum, our state can thoughtfully shape a model that protects student-athletes, preserves educational priorities, and sets a responsible example nationally,\u201d he said. \u201cIf we don\u2019t 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.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

H.B. 661 does not close doors for student-athletes, but rather it creates space, Cooper said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSpace to build safeguards,\u201d he said. \u201cSpace to ensure that any future direction reflects the educational purpose of high school athletics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Opponent testimony<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen people hear NIL \u2026 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,\u201d he said. \u201cThat environment does not exist at the high school level and it is not pay to play.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio state Rep. Phil Robinson, D-Solon, asked what the downside would be if middle and high school students could not receive NIL compensation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Talented student-athletes could leave Ohio, Fedlam said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStudent-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,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eugene Miller, a former state rep. who is running as a Democratic candidate for Ohio House District 20, spoke out against the bill. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you have somebody in the band, the band person can make money on the side,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you have someone who\u2019s a DJ, they can make money on the side. Why should we punish athletes based on their likability by eliminating NIL opportunities?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ohio High School Athletic Association <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jasmine Brown had filed the lawsuit on behalf of her son Jamier Brown, an Ohio State Buckeyes football commit from the Dayton area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown, a member of the class of 2027, has missed out on more than $100,000 in potential deals, according to the lawsuit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s very safe to assume that those who abstained did so because they were a no vote,\u201d Bird said. \u201cI 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\u2019re going down a path that schools in Ohio do not want to go.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ute, however, said he does not consider the schools that did not vote abstentions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey just didn\u2019t vote,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Megan Henry\/Ohio Capital Journal COLUMBUS — 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. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-203197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 22:13:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203197"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203231,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203197\/revisions\/203231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}