OHSAA to plan formal vote on NIL rules for high school athletes

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced Tuesday it will stage an emergency vote of its member schools on adopting a formal policy on name, image and likeness rules.

That vote is expected to happen in mid-November with the OHSAA board of directors set to hold a meeting on Thursday to decide the voting date. Each member high school's principal will cast a vote.  

That action follows Monday's temporary restraining order from a Franklin County judge for a 45-day allowance of NIL in Ohio.

"Right now, we're just in the temporary period where we have this 45-day window to go out to our member schools again and ask them for their vote on this issue," OSHAA Director of Communications Tim Stried said. "We really need to wait and see what our schools vote on first, and that will then shape the end of the TRO period when it would be in court." 

Ohio is one of six states in the nation that does not permit NIL for high school athletes. The OHSAA previously voted on an NIL proposal in 2022 but rejected it, and no formal proposal has been offered since then.

The lawsuit against the OHSAA was brought by Huber Heights Wayne football standout Jamier Brown and his mother, Jasmine. Brown is among the top-rated players in the nation for the class of 2027 and is already committed to Ohio State. His attorney said Brown could be receiving significant financial benefit from NIL, but accepting those deals in Ohio is currently against OHSAA rules and would therefore make him ineligible to play. 

At this moment, due to the lack of any NIL policy in the state, Ohio high school athletes are free to negotiate endorsements with few restrictions.

"In Ohio, they would not be able to endorse a product in their school uniform or on school grounds, but they would be able to make appearances, they'd be able to sign autographs, they'd be able to essentially receive revenue from a company or business," Stried said. 

Students can use third parties to negotiate deals, and the OHSAA said it plans to partner with a company that guides athletes through the endorsement process if NIL rules are eventually approved by member schools. 

NIL rules vary significantly from state to state, but generally athletes are not permitted to appear in advertisements in their school uniforms or on school grounds. In addition, students are responsible for taxes and other employment issues that would apply to most other jobs.

"The student athletes that are in that category to potentially sign an NIL deal have some homework to do," Stried said. "Just like if you had a job at a local restaurant, there are taxes that go with that. There are a lot of regulations that your employer may have. Some of that's the same... and that would not fall on the OHSAA. That would fall on the student athletes if they're going to engage in NIL." 

The OHSAA said it has been patient in monitoring NIL across the country, and also as it has taken hold in major college athletics. 

"At the Division I level, things like collectives where universities pay athletes directly, we've seen that that's been a pitfall," Stried said. "Their recruiting based on NIL, that's something we don't want to see at the high school level. The transfer portal is a huge part of college athletics now and obviously we don't want that, any shape of that, at the high school level. So those are some of the things we've seen at the college level that has made us really reluctant to put this up in Ohio for high schools. The courts have always ruled in favor of the student athletes. We've seen that over and over again. That's what we're dealing with right now. So our bylaw is going to shape a lot of that language that we think will have some controls on it."