FHSAA board approves Name, Image, Likeness rule allowing payments for high school athletes

By CHRIS HAYS 

The Florida High School Athletics Association board of directors unanimously approved bylaw changes Tuesday to allow student athletes to engage in Name, Image and Likeness deals. With the motion, Florida becomes the 36th state, including the District of Columbia, to allow NIL compensation at the high school level.

This policy will not go into effect until the FHSAA presents the proposal for ratification by the state’s Board of Education at its July 24 meeting.

In the words of FHSAA board member Trevor Berryhill, who is in his sixth year as athletics director at Master’s Academy in Oviedo, “It’s a new day and age.”

The FHSAA board, which has been reviewing NIL in a number of meetings and workshops for the past two months, discussed wording in several bylaws Tuesday, but there was little friction and the committee approved the motion 13-0 within the first two hours of the final board meeting for the school year.

“We’ve been talking about this thing for a couple of years now,” Berryhill said. “With a lot of the other states going this route, you don’t want to be the last to the table. But our state’s different, and I think we needed to take some time and really go through a few things and really pay attention.

“I really think we have a good start here. It’s not set in stone and if we think we need to make some adjustments, we have the ability do that [in the future]. Collectively, we didn’t feel like we could wait any longer. What would be the purpose of pushing this off two, three years?”

The issue has been on the front-burner of all FHSAA discussion as the association tried to get ahead of expected state legislation that will be approved to permit high schoolers to profit from NIL agreements.

NIL opportunities are subject to compliance with the FHSAA bylaw 9.9, in regards to amateurism (see image below).

Bylaw 9.9.4.7 was a big part of the discussions. It states that an athlete who transfers after starting a sport shall be prohibited from securing an NIL agreement that season. Transfers have been a growing concern since state legislation in the past two decades forced the FHSAA to relax restrictions to match open enrollment and school choice policies. One of the fears is having athletes lured to another school with NIL enticement.

This bylaw would help curb any movement from school to school by prohibiting a student from accepting NIL compensation after transferring to another school during his/her first season of participation in a particular sport.

There also is concern about collectives, which on the college level allow business networks to pool finances and develop packages to compensate athletes. Athletic directors fear that collectives could take away booster dollars, which now go to high school sports programs, and divert them to individual stars. The new FHSAA NIL bylaw 9.9.4.2 would draw a line between the two entities. It reads:

“NIL collectives shall not include team fundraising, but does include and is not limited to groups, organizations, or cooperative enterprises that exist to collect funds from donors and businesses, to help facilitate NIL deals for student-athletes, and/or create ways for athletes to monetize from their NIL.”

Student-athletes will not be allowed to use a school’s name, logo, uniform, mascot, insignia or any other identifying marks when engaging in NIL activity. None of the aforementioned can be used by the athlete in promoting a business entity.

The subject of enforcement is often a part of the NIL conversation, and Berryhill said the FHSAA will rely on schools to not only police themselves but to also answer to any accusations brought to the attention of the infractions committee.

“I absolutely am confident in staffs abilities to police the policies and bylaws and I hope people will be held accountable,” Berryhill said. “Where I think the potential issues lie are within the things that are not reported. They are not investigative reporters out on the street every day. There are things that go on in our state already that are enticing people to come to other schools, so this isn’t really any different. The same issues are going to be the same issues.”

The punishments are the part that Berryhill and the rest of the board hope will help curtail some of the potential cheating.

“The guidelines and the guardrails have been put in place,” he said. “I think having bigger punishments for [using NIL to recruit] will deter it from happening as much as I think it could happen, in terms of not following the policies.”

Chris Hays can be found on X @OS_ChrisHays. He can be reached via email at chays@orlandosentinel.com.

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/06/04/fhsaa-board-vote-approves-nil-athletes/