Just last week The Indiana High School Athletics Association (IHSAA) announced they’ve agreed to a high school version of Name Image Likeness (NIL.)
NIL allows students to profit from their college athletics. For high schoolers, they’re calling it PBA, or Personal Branding Activities.
Three Indiana Democrats including Rep. Alex Burton (D-77), have initiated a study of NIL ahead of it taking effect this fall to examine the possible impacts.
“Without any guardrails, without any guidance, I wanted to slow this down and make sure that we were implementing in the correct way,” Burton said. “My priority is making sure that we are focusing in on high school graduation and obtaining high school diplomas more so than students and or families receiving NIL dollars.”
The IHSAA has made the high-school version, PBA, different from college (NIL.) For example the schools play no part in brokering a Personal Branding Activity. There can also be no tie back to the high school.
As close as a student can get to athletics is being paid to lead a sports clinic, for example.
Students can’t be involved with anything that’s not legal for their age like alcohol or cigarettes.
For University of Evansville Men’s Basketball General Manager Joel Zimba, NIL coming to high school was unavoidable.
“The reality is, it's here to stay," he said. "So as long as it's done in a way that doesn't put them in danger, and they're not dealing with bad agents that do not have their best interests at heart, I do think that there's a large benefit for athletes to be able to capitalize on their name, image and likeness, if it's done the right way.”
Zimba was District Director of Athletics and Activities for a Wisconsin school district for five years.
He’s seen college athletes benefit from their likeness being used for example in billboards around town.
Zimba said a portion of students are still paying their way through college, or sending money home to their families. “There could be a large laundry list of things that they could use that funding for,” he said.
So back to that study. This will bring together parents, former students, coaches, athletic directors, superintendents and the general public to explore this issue.
The goal is to create some guardrails for students and promote education over extracurriculars.
Burton gave the hypothetical example of a student who reached a $10,000 PBA deal.
“They wouldn't be able to access more than 25-percent of those funds until they get their high school diploma was reached, and at the same time, working with other entities to ensure that financial literacy is prioritized,” Burton said.
The timeline for the study is not set — but these PBA deals can happen as early as this coming school year.
Burton also wants to protect high school sports in general.
He said today, athletes today can grow their names in tournaments through out the year, instead of in high school sports. He feels that these personal branding deals, without an academic requirement, may pull athletes away from school sports.
“If something is not done to put the proper guardrails in place, high school athletics, as we know them, will go away. And what you will see is more of these basketball tournaments popping up.”
Burton is hoping that through this summer-long study, a law to govern PBA in Indiana can be crafted and enacted.
He feels a proper blueprint doesn’t exist in other states, positions Indiana to be a leader in this area.
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