Boosters Look to Lure High School Athletes with NCAA Sidelined

Donor-funded organizations are preparing to pursue high school athletes with lucrative deals to lure them to specific colleges while a National Collegiate Athletic Association rule banning the practice is on hold.

Colleges and their allies often partner to recruit promising athletes with six-figure sports contracts to profit from their name, image, and likeness. The NCAA previously enforced a rule that meant only currently enrolled college students could sign contracts with third-party collectives, but prohibited NIL activity for prospective college recruits.

A preliminary injunction in a Tennessee court last month bars the NCAA from enforcing those rules nationwide, meaning collectives—organizations largely funded by donors and alumni—can make deals with star athletes while they’re still in high school, said Jason Belzer, CEO of Student Athlete NIL, which operates more than 50 collectives across the country including for schools such as Wake Forest, Rutgers, and Vanderbilt universities.

“The reality is there were plenty of unethical players in this industry beforehand that were doing whatever they wanted,” Belzer said, referring to groups who were already openly recruiting high schoolers prior to the pause. “This just allows organizations like ours that were operating above the line to come in and say, ‘We can be aggressive, we can be transparent, we can have real conversations.’”

Belzer’s organization has more than 1,000 athletes under a contract across its collectives, with deals from donors or local businesses who want to use athletes’ names, images, or likenesses. NIL deals can involve a range of promotional activities including posting sponsored content on social media in exchange for money, and engaging in endorsements, sponsorships, and partnerships with other brands.

Such deals can net students $100,000 a year or more, but are also prone to fraud or abuse, especially when reviewed by high school students or parents who lack legal counsel or contract experience.

See also: College Athletes Lured by NIL Deals, Exploited by Fine Print

The injunction means collectives can potentially sign multiyear contracts with prospective recruits in their late high school years, said Josh Strickland, general manager of the Roll The Quad collective at Wake Forest who also oversees partnerships for Student Athlete NIL.

“We are talking about a system that just doesn’t have any guardrails,” Strickland said. “The power has shifted to the players.”

The injunction is in place until the judge rules on the merits of the case, which could take up to a year or more. In the meantime, the decision deals another blow to the NCAA, which is confronting multiple suits over its enforcement and power over college sports.

The NCAA has halted investigations involving third-party participation in NIL-related activities while the injunction is in place. In a statement, the NCAA said the judge’s decision “will aggravate an already chaotic collegiate environment, further diminishing protections for student-athletes from exploitation.”

“The NCAA fully supports student-athletes making money from their name, image and likeness and is making changes to deliver more benefits to student-athletes, but an endless patchwork of state laws and court opinions make clear partnering with Congress is necessary to provide stability for the future of all college athletes,” the NCAA said in the statement.

See also: Unionizing Student Athletes Called ‘Existential Threat’ by GOP

NIL Opportunities

Virginia and Tennessee sued over the NCAA’s recruiting rule in January, alleging the ban is an “illegal agreement to restrain and suppress competition” within the labor market of Division I athletics. Both states prohibit NCAA and other athletic associations from interfering with athletes’ ability to earn NIL money.

The NCAA argued the recruiting rule has pro-competitive benefits, including maintaining a distinction between collegiate and professional athletics.

Judge Clifton Corker found the NCAA’s recruiting ban “likely” violated antitrust law.

“Without the give and take of a free market, student-athletes simply have no knowledge of their true NIL value,” the judge said. “It is this suppression of negotiating leverage and the consequential lack of knowledge that harms student-athletes.”

Corker’s opinion creates “a free for all” as more collectives will rush to negotiate with high schoolers, said Jodi Balsam, professor of clinical law at Brooklyn Law School and a former litigation attorney who has represented sports and entertainment clients in antitrust matters. “The end game for recruiting of high school students was this preliminary injunction. I don’t think there is any going back from this,” she said.

Few athletes will reach the level of college gymnast Olivia Dunne of Louisiana State University, who has made millions of dollars from NIL contracts and partnerships with companies like Vuori, an athletic apparel firm, or of University of Southern California basketball player Bronny James, son of NBA star LeBron James.

But the deals can still be quite lucrative, with a top-50 basketball player out of high school potentially making $100,000 a year, while football players from a top college football program can make millions of dollars, Student Athlete NIL’s Belzer said.

Strickland said there are a number of student athletes at Wake Forest who have six-figure NIL contracts.

NIL Pitfalls

The recruiting ban could still be enforceable if the NCAA ends up prevailing in the lawsuit, unless it opts not to reinstate it.

But even if the NCAA were to win on the merits of the case in a year or two, it’s unlikely the organization could suddenly “wave a magic wand” and tell the nation’s population of high school athletes they would no longer be able to pursue deals with collectives before committing to a school, said Brooklyn Law School’s Balsam.

In the meantime, high school athletes should exercise caution as they could easily be tricked into signing contracts they don’t fully understand and don’t benefit from, said Luke Fedlam, a partner with Porter Wright Morris & Arthur LLP who leads the firm’s sports law practice group.

“Just because a collective is associated with a particular institution doesn’t mean that the contract is automatically good to go,” Fedlam said. “You have to make sure that you have competent qualified counsel reviewing these contracts to make sure you know what you are getting into.”

Read More: NCAA Athletes Left Exposed as Efforts to Tighten NIL Rules Stall

While college-level athletes get some guidance on these deals, “the high schools just aren’t set up to manage that,” Fedlam said.

Athletes and collectives also still have to navigate a patchwork of NIL rules in states across the country that could prohibit deals from taking shape. Talented high school athletes could lose their eligibility to play if they sign NIL deals that conflict with their state high school athletic associations’ NIL rules, Fedlam said.

“If I’m just an average mom or dad who is not familiar with this case, and I read a headline that says ‘Hey, NCAA isn’t enforcing these rules,’ you’ve got to pump the breaks a little bit before you just sign on for a deal,” Fedlam said.

The case is Tennessee v. NCAA, E.D. Tenn., No. 3:24-cv-00033.