South Florida high school football community excited about athletes making money from endorsements
High school athletes must be rejoicing because the playing field just got leveled; well not exactly but just got a whole lot more interesting.
Last week, Florida Board of Education approved Name, Image and Likeness deals for the high school section; hence, high school kids can do endorsement deals. Sure enough, NIL was much-discussed today as the buccaneer occasion in which all the county’s football teams assemble – yearly media day at the Broward Athletic Association.
South Plantation High School quarterback Sakeem Mohammed agreed with it because NIL is good for high school players and because playing high school football probably gives them a reason to work harder.
One of his coach, Colby Erskine added that players do need to benefit from their position.
“Especially with football, because it is football, the probability of getting an injury is relatively high, people require that opportunity to make money, these kids invest so much time, energy, and resources into that. ” Erskine said.
“They’re not doing this so they can get millions from this, this is just something that they can have, a chance to get their name out there and practice and, maybe, get a little bit of money,” concluded Quinten Short, a head coach of Piper High school.
It is sort of like just an after-school talent job, until it becomes far more says Kevin Perry a man who used to work as a high school athletic director and is now a NIL licensed agent.
“Five figures, six figures, they need an attorney involved,” Perry said, and I said okay, high school kids can earn that much?
“There are some in the country that will pay that,” Perry said this but added that there are body-builders in California who earn hundreds of thousands of dollars before they even complete high school.
NIL money, according to Perry, kids earn through their social media personalities, getting clicks for their clients.
Roger Harriott supervises the state champion St. Thomas Aquinas Raiders which has talented players. Somewhere he says it is like the early greater power comes, the more great responsibility there is.
“To give the correct info and the right direction is gonna be very crucial so as not to expose them to such unethical situations,” said Harriott.
“Of course any new system like that would be great if it is new like that as long as we have to follow what we have to follow,” Particularly, Patty Brown position is the director of athletics for Broward County Public Schools.
Brown said the state has placed parameters, for instance, one cannot wear anything that is affiliated to the school, one cannot wear school colors, one cannot mention which school they are representing, there are more rules.
“Not misrepresenting by using anything promoting alcohol, drugs, gambling, so we want to ensure that we are explaining that properly to our athletes and parents,” said Brown.
The school district, she said, is planning for a campaign to inform the athletes and parents on how to make the most out of every single letter of the acronym, while not being conned by any fly-by-night operators or being the recipient of a ‘bad’ deal.