The 5 NIL Blind Spots of Youth & High School Sports
Read time: 4 minutes
The experience of playing youth and high school sports helps young people to develop physical skills, social bonds, and valuable life lessons that extend far beyond the playing field. Memories of youth and high school sports last a lifetime.
As a former athlete - and now parent and youth coach - I believe every word of that. I’m also deeply concerned about the challenges that NIL is going to bring to youth and high school sports.
So it’s through that lens of reality, that I urge those involved in sports at those levels, to recognize their NIL "blind spots."
There are at least five aspects of NIL that most parents, coaches, and administrators are unaware of - and that will have a major impact on youth and high school sports if left unchecked.
Club Sports
While it's not accurate to say that youth club sports have universally disrupted high school sports, they have certainly had a major impact on high school sports like basketball, lacrosse, volleyball, soccer, and others.
Clubs have already led to increased specialization and year-round participation. And already some high school athletes have chosen to focus solely on club sports, leading to a decline in participation in high school sports and a shift in the skill level and talent pool of high school teams. The other challenges of club sports include scheduling conflicts, coaching and training standards, and unrealistic recruiting expectations of athletes and parents.
Where does NIL play a role? The states that are prohibiting high school NIL are at risk. By deeming athletes ineligible to play for their high schools by participating in NIL, they may inadvertently push more high school athletes to choose club teams over high school sports.
Collectives
Athletic booster clubs are nothing new. Often they are non-profit organizations formed by parents, alumni, and other community members to support and enhance the high school sports programs within a specific school. The primary purpose of a booster club is to provide financial support to supplement the resources and activities of the school's athletic department.
Today’s booster clubs look a lot like the 200+ NIL Collectives that have developed across collegiate athletics in the last 24 months.
An NIL Collective refers to an organization that represents and supports a collective of athletes in navigating and monetizing their name, image, and likeness rights. An NIL Collective serves as a centralized entity that assists athletes in managing and maximizing their earning potential through various business opportunities, endorsements, sponsorships, and other ventures.
It’s a fine line between a booster club providing financial support to the school's athletic department and an NIL club providing financial support to the school’s athletes.
Subscriptions
Do you know about the new(ish) NIL subscription “clubs” that have begun to proliferate at the college level?
Usually the members of an individual team build a website that includes a way for fans to pay a monthly fee of between $10-$100 per month. In exchange for the fee, the club offers fans exclusive access to content, experiences, and merchandise related to the club and its athletes.
Exclusive content includes behind-the-scenes footage, interviews, training sessions, and exclusive updates about the athletes' lives. This content aims to provide an intimate and personalized connection between the fans and the athletes they support.
The club may organize special experiences or events exclusively for its subscribed fans. This could include meet-and-greets, autograph signings, VIP access to games or competitions, virtual interactions, or even live-streamed Q&A sessions with the athletes.
Subscribed fans would have the opportunity to purchase exclusive merchandise, such as jerseys, apparel, or signed memorabilia, associated with the athletes and the club. Additionally, they may receive discounts or special offers on official merchandise.
It’s hard to believe that a high school NIL club would generate the interest or income of a college club. But it wouldn’t need to. Rather, a high school club could quite easily be set up and would only need a few dozen subscribers in order for high school athletes to begin benefiting financially.
Lack of a Free Market
I like to believe that NIL’s first advocates honestly believed that it would be a free market - where transactions between athletes and businesses would occur without significant intervention, self-interest, or coercion.
But it’s difficult to argue that the NIL marketplace hasn’t been distorted.
First, there is the existence of NIL Collectives and Clubs. Neither of those encourages competition within a free market. Instead, a school’s or team’s supporters (fans, parents, boosters, or businesses) supports the entity and its athletes financially. Fans do not choose between one NIL Club versus another based on its products, price, or scarcity, but rather simply make contributions for the purpose of supporting “their” athletes.
Second, there are often abnormalities with regard to compensation paid to student-athletes. Sometimes athletes are paid what sport industry experts consider well above market value (even for professional athletes) for NIL activities. In other instances, athletes are being paid below market value - likely because they don’t have access to education or data that would inform them of their value.
It’s likely that the lack of a free market will descend too on youth and high school sports, a landscape ill-equipped to monitor the market or enforce violations.
Girls Sports
Despite an often repeated media narrative to the contrary, NIL is not entirely good for women athletes. And I suspect it won’t be for girls either.
NIL success is grounded in an athlete's visibility. Women's sports historically receive significantly less media coverage and exposure compared to men's sports. This disparity in media representation has translated into lower visibility and fewer endorsement opportunities for women athletes, limiting their earning potential through NIL activities.
There are numerous metrics by which we study this at the college level, including:
The wage gap between male and female athletes (men make about 3.5x more than women on the same NIL activity according to multiple surveys I’ve conducted)
The percent of Collective dollars that flow to women athletes (23% according to On3.com)
The number of women athletes ranked in the top 20 of all NIL valuations (2 according to On3.com)
Are youth and high school sports organizations equipped to suss out inequities and take corrective action? It seems unlikely they will have the resources, even if they have the will.
The NIL “genie” is out of the bottle and can’t be put back in. Now that genie is swooping in on high school and eventually youth sports. The best we can do is recognize our blind spots and prepare.
There are 3 ways I can help you:
1. If you're looking for a deep dive into NIL, consider applying to the next session of the NIL/mba program. Read more here.
2. If you’re looking to get educated on NIL quickly, contact me to schedule an NIL Workshop. These 1 hour live Zooms are intended for small groups and are customized for your audience. Read more here.
3. If you are interested in NIL consulting, please email me at bill@studentathleteinsights.com.
Bill Carter is an NIL Consultant, Educator, and Speaker. He is a NIL Columnist for Sports Business Journal and teaches NIL in College Sports at the University of Vermont’s Grossman School of Business. Click here to read about Bill’s NIL Consulting and NIL Education for sports organizations, universities, and brands.