- House Bill-4816 prohibits high schools from preventing high school athletes from profiting from NIL deals
- Michigan would be the 21st state to allow NIL deals for high school athletes if the bill is passed
- The Michigan High School Athletic Association would work directly with high schools to approve or disapprove of potential deals
Transcript:
It's a bill that would clear the way for high school athletes to turn a profit on their name, image and likeness, in ways similar to what's happening in college sports.
House Bill-4816 would allow high school athletes in Michigan to profit from name, image and likeness deals. Many people have heard of college athlete stars making big bucks when it comes to brand deals. When it comes to high school athletes, Michigan is currently one of 30 states that prohibit these deals from happening.
This new bill prohibits athletic institutions, including high schools themselves, from getting in the way of athletes making these deals. High schools won’t be able to restrict compensation or athlete play time, and they won’t be able to profit off of their star individuals.
I was interested in learning how this would work logistically, so I spoke with sponsor of the bill, Representative Jimmie Wilson. He told me that when an athlete signs a deal, their high school would report these numbers to the Michigan High School Athletic Association, who would approve or disapprove of those deals.
"Make sure you have carve-outs in here so that these high school athletes aren't sponsoring alcohol, firearms, strip-clubs, or all these different entities that they could market," said Rep. Wilson.
After this call, I reached out to Geoff Kimmerly, Communications Director at the MHSAA. He told me this bill isn’t designed for every high school athlete, in-fact, it’s made for the golden few.
"We think this is only going to affect a very small number of athletes at the high school level," Kimmerly said. "This isn't the college level where this is millions of dollars going through the system".
But concerns arise when considering the responsibility signing deals and contracts can be, especially for minors.
"We've heard horrible stories from other states about high schoolers basically not knowing what they are signing," Kimmerly added. "Signing their careers away before they've really started."
Kimmerly expressed that with this bill being freshly introduced, it will take some time to see how high schools and the MHSAA will work together to stay on top of concerns. Unless this bill is passed, star athletes will continue to wait until college to make their deals.
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