Virginia High School League to allow NIL deals starting July 1

The Virginia High School League‘s executive committee voted Wednesday to approve a name, image and likeness rule change that allows high school athletes to participate in NIL deals starting July 1, 2023. Virginia is the second state where a high school athletic association approved an NIL rule change on Wednesday.

In the morning, the North Carolina High School Athletic Association approved an NIL policy that will also take effect July 1. Virginia is the 28th state, plus the District of Columbia, where high school athletes can pursue NIL deals while maintaining their eligibility.

The two states are notable due to their location and the number of Division I athletes they produce.

In the 2023 recruiting class, Virginia produced eight four-star football recruits, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, including top-100 prospects and Penn State enrollees Alex Birchmeier and Tony Rojas. The state also has two top-100 men’s basketball prospects who are in the 2023 recruiting class with Maryland signee DeShawn Harris-Smith and NC State signee Dennis Parker.

More states to allow high schoolers to sign NIL deals

Prior to Wednesday, Louisiana and Tennessee were the only two states in the Southeast where all high school athletes who attend a member school of the state’s primary high school athletic association can pursue NIL deals. In Arkansas, a law recently went into effect that grants NIL rights to high school athletes who have been admitted to or signed a National Letter of Intent to attend an institution in the state.

Major talent-producing states such as Florida, Georgia and Texas don’t allow high school athletes to enter into NIL agreements.

Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association Executive Director Mark Reeves told On3 over the winter, following the association’s rule change, “I think that’s been the general consensus with other directors I’ve talked to – that it’s certainly a much smaller scale and smaller deals and not as big of an issue as maybe people might have feared when it was first being discussed.”

The Virginia High School League’s new NIL rule

The Virginia High School League’s new NIL rule states that “NIL contracts/agreements need to come from analysis of the value an athlete brings for providing a specific service/activity, not as an incentive for enrollment decisions or membership on a team.”

Athletes must notify in writing their principal or athletic director within 72 hours of entering an NIL agreement.

A high school athlete will forfeit his or her amateur status, according to VHSL rules, by capitalizing on athletic fame by receiving compensation, endorsement or gifts by using the intellectual property of the VHSL or a member school. Intellectual property includes a school, district or region name, uniforms, mascots or logos.

High school athletes can’t reference their school, team, district, region or VHSL while participating in NIL activities. They also can’t endorse or promote goods or services during team activities or events.

Notably, the rule states, “no school or anyone employed by or affiliated with a member school, including booster clubs, coaches, administrators, alumni or an NIL collective, may solicit, arrange, or negotiate or pay for a student’s NIL, other than their own child.”

NIL deals involving corporate partners from industries such as adult entertainment, alcohol, tobacco and electronic smoking, opioids, controlled substances, casinos, gambling, sports betting, weapons, firearms and ammunition are prohibited.

The VHSL’s rule change removes a clause in its amateur rule that said an athlete will lose amateur status if the athlete “received compensation or benefit, directly or indirectly, for the use of name, picture and/or persona appearance, as an athlete in that sport, or provides endorsement, as an athlete in that sport, in the promotion of a commercial or profit-making event, item, plan or service.”