MONROE COUNTY, Ga. — High school athletes can now cash in like college students.
The Georgia High School Association voted this morning to allow compensation to student-athletes for their name, image, or likeness.
NIL has become a well-known abbreviation in the sports world. It stands for name image and likeness, the very things that high school student-athletes can now profit from.
But GHSA president Jim Finch breaks it down to compensation.
"It's just a compensation for their notoriety, their fame or their attachment to a certain school or sport or activity," Finch explained.
Finch said that NIL is specific to opportunities off the field.
"Students should be able to profit off of this. Should they be getting paid for performance? No," Finch declared.
GHSA added restrictions when athletes do strike a deal with their NIL.
“Without necessarily leveraging their school’s name or their logo, or the GHSA, or whatever," Finch said.
GHSA made sure that NIL cannot be used as leverage for recruiting.
"The way we’ve got it written right now is that nil can’t be used to influence a student’s opportunity to stay at a certain school nor transfer to a certain school and I hope it stays that way," Finch said.
When student-athletes do find a deal, they need to follow the process within a week, according to Finch.
"They have to make sure that their school is informed and then there has to be a registration process with the Georgia High School Association as well,” Finch said.
If athletes are found in violation of the NIL rules, Finch explained that the athlete and school could be affected.
"For a student-athlete, it could very much jeopardize their eligibility to participate in extracurricular activities, especially athletics," Finch said. "For schools, it could jeopardize their ability to participate in that sport or that postseason."
Finch is excited for the future.
"You know I think that part is exciting instead of someone else benefiting off of their name, image and likeness," Finch said.
Finch said Georgia will be joining a list of more than 30 states that have some form of NIL at the high school level.
The GHSA restricted collectives or organizations dedicated to NIL from being associated with member schools.
These organizations are usually responsible for finding deals and paying student-athletes directly instead of the establishments the athlete works with.