(ThyBlackMan.com) During TV ads today, there is a noticeable type of endorser that is new among athletes that did not have access a decade ago. It is becoming common to see college basketball or college football stars in TV ads endorsing products and the well-known phrase, “Name, Image, and Likeness” are the reason for that. Name, Image, and Likeness, also known as NIL, “are the three elements that make up “right of publicity”, a legal concept used to prevent or allow the use of an individual to promote a product or service.” It essentially allows collegiate athletes to capitalize off and benefit from their likeness. For decades, this wasn’t the case as colleges, universities, companies, and the NCAA have been able to rake in mountains of money from collegiate sports that the athletes themselves couldn’t quite do without fear of being ruled ineligible from playing their sport. History was made in 2021 when several U.S. states had Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) legislation signed into law effective in that year.
While colleges and universities still cannot pay college athletes for their work in their sport, the NCAA’s NIL rules allow athletes the right to profit from the use of their own name, image and likeness through methods including merchandise sales, personal appearances, autograph signing, and other options. NIL is such a part of college sports that one of the top sports websites highlighting high school athletes has a NIL list of the ranking of the highest earning college athletes through NIL, which includes valuations of LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne of $3.9 million and Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders of $4.7 million respectively. Those are the top two earners so it isn’t like every college athlete is now a millionaire but it does display the potential for life changing monetary earnings as a college athlete in ways that have never been seen before.
People may be unaware that NIL also extends to high school athletes as well. There are 39 states in the U.S. that through laws or local athletic associations that allow student-athletes to participate in NIL deals without forfeiting the ability to play high school sports. One of the U.S. states that previously didn’t allow high school NIL is North Carolina, where the Number 1-ranked football prospect in the Class of 2026, Faizon Brandon, sued the North Carolina State Board of Education over the inability to financially benefit over his Name, Image, and Likeness. Faizon Brandon has recently committed to play football for the University of Tennessee and was offered scholarships by nearly every big-time college football program in the country.
Due to Brandon’s hard work and talents on the football field, he was reportedly, “approached by a prominent national trading card company and presented with an opportunity… to provide a certain volume of signed memorabilia prior to his high school graduation. In exchange, NIL Sponsor 1 would pay [Brandon] a substantial sum of money, with payments structured over time. The agreement would provide [Brandon] and his family with financial security for years to come.” The offer of this deal was according to the lawsuit that Brandon and his family filed. Due to the North Carolina State Board of Education’s previous policy prohibiting high school athletes from profiting off their name, image and likeness, Brandon and his family almost couldn’t accept the deal without him would losing eligibility to play his junior and senior years of high school football.
The time and resources that it takes for top level high school athletes to perform is truly a family commitment from buying athletic equipment to the transportation costs for games, practices, and other athletic events. In the midst of catastrophe devastation in the state of North Carolina and some southern states due to hurricane damage, a North Carolina judge recently ruled that public-school athletes in the state such as Faizon Brandon can profit from NIL. That news was understandably overshadowed by the effects of hurricane damage but is news on a much smaller scale.
Staff Writer; Mark Hines
