Public, private high school NIL divide in North Carolina holding recruits back from ‘life-changing money’

Football players only have so much time to maximize their talent on and off the field. 

Thomas Davis knows plenty about that. The former All-American safety at Georgia turned NFL All-Pro linebacker and Walter Payton Man of the Year retired from the sport in 2021. He didn’t come up the ranks during the age of NIL when players can now sign endorsement deals. 

But he now has a front-row seat. His son, Thomas Davis Jr., is a top-100 prospect in the 2026 recruiting class. The 6-foot-2, 210-linebacker attends Weddington High School in Matthews, North Carolina. 

Somehow, attending a public school puts Davis’ son at a disadvantage. Currently, 35 local athletic associations, including Washington, D.C., allow student-athletes to participate in NIL deals without forfeiting the ability to play high school sports. 

Florida and Texas prohibit NIL at the moment. North Carolina is the only state where NIL was deemed legal before being walked back. 

The North Carolina High School Athletic Association Board of Directors approved a proposal that would’ve brought NIL rights to North Carolina public high school student-athletes starting on July 1, 2023. But North Carolina politicians shut the measure down barely a day later with legislation that eventually stripped the state association of much of its power and threatened its very existence.

“It’s unfair, and the way that they’ve handled it is wrong,” Davis said. “I just think that if you’re going to allow it for one particular set of kids, then it shouldn’t be allowed for all of them. And if it isn’t going to be allowed for everyone, then nobody shouldn’t be able to do it. I think we have enough states that have got on board with the whole NIL structure at the high school level, and they’ve done it the right way. They opened it up for all the kids, and they didn’t make it biased to one particular group. That’s the same formula North Carolina should follow in order to keep things fair.”

North Carolina is ‘restricting their economic rights’

While states like California, Georgia, Florida and Texas are continually viewed as talent hotbeds, North Carolina has produced 47 NFL draft picks in the last five years. The state ranks seventh in the nation in that category. 

Combining the 2025 and 2026 recruiting classes, 20 athletes in North Carolina are ranked in the top 300 of the On3 Industry Rankings. Interestingly, the top North Carolina prospect in the 2025 class, David Sanders Jr., attends Providence Day School, a private school. He’s already signed NIL representation with WME. 

“Not allowing those athletes and their families to have access to this money is doing the opposite of what the legislature is supposed to do: It’s harming North Carolina residents and restricting their economic rights,” Mit Winter, a college sports attorney with Kennyhertz Perry and board member for the players’ association Athletes.org, told On3. 

But in the 2026 class, two players from public schools in the state rank in the top 10 – tight end Kendre Harrison and quarterback Faizon Brandon. Brandon is ranked by On3 and 247Sports as the top quarterback in the 2026 class.

“We’re being penalized because our children are going through public schools, and we can’t afford to put them in a private school,” the parent of a North Carolina 2026 athlete who wished to stay anonymous told On3. “But he’s thriving. And he’s bringing so much public attention to the state of North Carolina. Why is he not able to capitalize on all his hard work?”

While the parent wished not to get into details of the situation, they did emphasize the athlete has already been offered “life-changing” money that climbs into the seven figures.

That’s the price of navigating NIL in the high school ranks of North Carolina. 

“I definitely feel like that as this process gets started, if the state doesn’t allow the public schools to benefit the same way that the private schools are, that it will become a factor in losing kids to private school,” said Darryl Brown, the coach at Grimsley High School, where Faizon Brandon plays.

Brands offering life-changing NIL deals

Over the last six months, top high school football prospects have inked exclusive, multi-year deals with Leaf Trading Cards. At least four of the top quarterbacks in the upcoming 2025, 2026 and 2027 classes have inked NIL deals with the company. That doesn’t include Florida freshman quarterback DJ Lagway, who signed with Leaf shortly after enrolling. Names like Tennessee’s Nico Iamaleava and Ohio State’s Air Noland have participated in non-exclusive roles, too. 

Sources have told On3 that these deals range in the six to seven figures. Full terms are not disclosed. The latest deal came last week with top 2027 quarterback Peyton Houston – from Shreveport (Louisiana) Evangel Christian – signing an exclusive contract. His family described the cash as “life-changing,” something Houston can access because he lives in Louisiana. 

North Carolina public school athletes are not privy to those opportunities, though.

“At the end of the day, any kid that has the opportunity and has been blessed with the talent and the ability to be a kid that a company wants to represent their brand should have the opportunity to represent that brand, for whatever reason, in whatever way possible,” Thomas Davis told On3. “This is something that I would be saying, as a former NFL player, even if I didn’t have a kid, a nephew or anybody that could benefit or possibly benefit from having an NIL deal.

“This is me speaking about what is right. I am a public school product. So, I understand the value in being able to go to a public school and the experience that you can actually get from being in a public school and what that offers you. I don’t want kids to start looking at that as a negative.”

Could North Carolina lawmakers pivot on NIL?

In July, Senate Bill 452 will go into effect. The legislation, signed in October, targets the NCHSAA and takes away the association’s ability to govern eligibility, academics and amateurism. The law will give much of the power to state lawmakers and the North Carolina superintendent of public instruction.

It remains unknown if politicians will reverse course on NIL for public schools or not. The latest update on the situation came in February when State Senator Vickie Sawyer told the Charlotte Observer that the North Carolina Board of Education plans to propose NIL rules for public school athletes to the state’s Rules Review Commission.

Across the nation, state legislatures have taken action to put collegiate institutions at an advantage. Lawmakers in Missouri, New York and Oklahoma have passed bills to prevent the NCAA from launching investigations into NIL activities. 

“The fact that politics are preventing North Carolina high school athletes that attend public schools from being paid NIL compensation after the NCHSAA already voted to allow them to do so, is a disservice to those athletes and their families,” Winter said. “It’s preventing some North Carolina public school athletes and their families from receiving life-changing money from businesses that want to do deals with the athletes, money that the athletes have earned from the recognition they’ve received due to their hard work and talent.”

Davis said he believes something must be put in place to teach these kids financial literacy – something that would come through the ability to engage in NIL deals.

“Now if you have the opportunity in high school to learn how to save money, to how to be smart with managing and the things you do with your money, Davis said. “If you learn this on the high school level, by the time you get to college, making that transition is going to become easier for these kids. That would allow us to start seeing a trend disappear of NFL athletes by the time they’re down with the game going broke.”