What to know if name, image, likeness opportunity comes to Delaware high school sports

Ursuline Academy freshmen Jezelle Banks and Taylor Brown have already been offered scholarships by some of the nation’s best collegiate women’s basketball programs.

Unlike top-level players those schools may be recruiting from other states, Banks and Brown, as high school students in Delaware, cannot financially benefit from their talent and notoriety.

“Being able to market ourselves,” Brown said, “wearing different clothing brands and just putting our face on some people’s merchandise would be a big help and allow us to be bigger than what we already are.”

Likewise, Delmar High junior field hockey player Jordyn Hollamon is a member of the United States under-18 team. Last year, she was offered a chance to sponsor a brand of field hockey sticks. She had to turn down that opportunity to maintain her high school eligibility.

“I was super excited at first because I thought I was just gonna be able to start doing that and it’s cool to be able to do that at young age,” said Hollamon, who turns 17 on Feb. 19. “But then I realized that there was a rule that I couldn’t do it.”

Now, those rules are about to change, and being able to accept such an opportunity appears imminent. 

On Jan. 18, the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association’s board of directors tentatively approved in a unanimous vote – without a hint of apprehension – new regulations permitting Delaware student-athletes to profit from personal use of their name, image and likeness, though a final decision was delayed until the Feb. 22 meeting. The DIAA board did not, however, grant final approval, tabling the issue again until March after a lengthy discussion for what board member Dorrell Green termed "further evaluation."

The State Board of Education must also sanction the rules. It’s expected NIL opportunities could be permitted by the end of this school year or before 2024-25. More than 30 other states had previously decided the same, including nearby Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Virginia.

NIL’s arrival is a sign of the times and provides income-earning opportunities non-athletes may already have. But it does create a multitude of potential pitfalls in ensuring school compliance, suggested DIAA executive director David Baylor.

“It’s naïve of us as regulators to not think about the whole dynamic of how NIL is going to impact an individual, a team, a school,” Baylor said. “We’re going to have to be flexible enough to see what the impact is and adjust accordingly so we’re protecting the best interest of the student-athletes and interscholastic athletics.”

State high school athletic organizations nationally have been implementing NIL rules since the NCAA, in June of 2021, gave college athletes the freedom to financially benefit from using their name, image or likeness, which was previously prohibited.

That, for instance, has allowed Jordyn’s older sister Josie, a Delmar grad and University of Maryland freshman who has been on U.S. senior and under-21 field hockey teams, to sign a contract sponsoring the field hockey stick brand STX.

Now, many high school athletes enjoy the same freedom.

“It’s definitely an opportunity for me to brand myself and market myself for more exposure,” Banks said, “have my name on certain stuff, have my image on certain stuff. That’ll just give me a better opportunity to go further and play at better places [in college].”

There are rules to follow

The DIAA regulation states “a student may earn compensation from the use of their name, image and likeness provided that the compensation is not contingent on specific athletic performance or achievement, is not provided as an incentive to enroll or remain enrolled at a specific school, and is not provided by the school or any person acting as an agent for the school.”

A NIL agreement may not include the DIAA’s or a school’s name, colors, logos, mascots or acronyms, including on the student’s apparel, and school facilities may not be involved.

Before NIL, a teen-age athlete could not financially benefit from their ability and renown in their specialty the way, for example, a clarinet player in the band or competitive weightlifter or body builder might.

Typically, a high school athlete may seek NIL opportunities in six areas – autographs, appearances, merchandise, camps and instruction, product endorsements and social media promotion and posting, according to an NIL prep kit published by Triple Threat Leadership for high school administrators.

Social media promotion and posting often involving apparel brands is particularly common. Compensation could be in monetary payments but also in free or discounted products or services, travel, meals or merchandise.

“Will you be a brand ambassador for us and you’ll get some free gear?,” prep kit editor Scott Grant said about a common NIL transaction, mentioning baseball players getting sliding gloves for example.

John Parker, a first-team All-Class 3A wide receiver and returnman for Dover’s football team last fall as a junior, has enjoyed posting photos on his Showtime_13 Instagram account and views that as a possible NIL tool.

Parker, who has begun to attract college recruiting interest, attended summer camps last year at Delaware, Rutgers, Penn State and several other schools and plans to again this year. There are travel and hotel costs with those and he’d love to be able to possibly supplement them.

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“My dad sent me something related to that a couple days ago and I was like ‘That’s what’s up!’ They have it in college and now they have it in high school,” Parker said about NIL. “I think that was good idea.”

Parker's junior teammate Michael Stevenson, the 3A Lineman of the Year, has also already been receiving strong recruiting interest and has begun to think about NIL's potential benefits. He also has an Instagram account -- Michael_Stevenson07302 -- on which the could possibly tout equipment or merchandise if opportunities arise.

"I'm familiar with [NIL] because college coaches do it now," Stevenson said, "so for me it's trying to get some monetary value for being able to play football and the person that I am and support myself along with my parents for the sport that I play."

In addition to being sport-specific, NIL deals could also be very local in nature, such as endorsing an area service provider or business, perhaps a restaurant or car dealer.

"My next step is to be a college kid so I've actually thought about some local business that fit for me," Stevenson said.

While high-level talent is one path to NIL success for high school students, anyone could profit from being an effective user of social-media vehicles such as Instagram or TikTok due to a creative, unusual or humorous approach.

Sometimes, having just the right look or appearance works.

Brown, who lives in Cheltenham, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington resident Banks both have summer Nike Elite Youth Basketball League teammates – on Brown’s Philly Rise and Banks’ Team Durant – who attend high schools in other states and have NIL deals.

“You see other people that have all these opportunities and it’s like ‘Wow that could be us,’ ” Banks said.

Likewise, Holloman, who lives on the Delaware side of Delmar, which, as its name implies, covers two states, has Shore Byrds club teammates who attend high school in Maryland and have been able since last year to accept NIL opportunities.

“When I saw my sister was able to do it [at Maryland],” Jordyn Hollamon said, “it showed me hopefully one day I would get the opportunity to make some money off of posting different things on social media and getting different gear from a certain brand.”

The impending ruling will now permit her to do that.

Income without a summer job

Elite high school athletes typically spend much of their summer traveling to attend camps and competitions. That limits the opportunity to pursue full- or part-time work – lifeguarding at a pool or serving customers at McDonald’s, for instance – the way classmates might.

That’s why, Brown said, that “having our own brand” through NIL “would be a major big help.”

An NIL agreement is a legally binding contract. Any income is subject to state and/or federal taxes and could affect a student’s financial aid eligibility in college.

Jodi Hollamon, the Delmar field hockey coach who is Jordyn’s mother and operates Shore Byrds with sister Juli Bradford, said elite athletes deserve to be rewarded for their diligence.

“The athletes who are at the level where they may have the opportunity to be sponsored, it is because of their hard work within that sport,” Jodi Hollamon said. “That hard work within that sport might mean they can’t have a job. But they’re working within their sport, and [NIL] allows them to earn some money.”

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That would come in handy, for instance, for costs Jordyn incurs from her U.S. activities, such as a recent camp in Charlotte, North Carolina, that USA Field Hockey doesn’t cover for younger players.

Smyrna field hockey coach Loveita Moffett echoed Jodi Hollamon. Her daughter, Smyrna sophomore Bree Moffett, is on the U.S. under-16 team that went unbeaten in six games last year at the Four Nations Tournament in Holland.

Bree was also at the recent U.S. camp in Charlotte. Loveita estimated their family has accumulated about $20,000 in debt covering Bree’s travel costs, a worthy investment for an athlete with high-level talent and 2028 Olympic aspirations.

NIL could allow Bree to help her family cover some of those costs by earning income, for instance, from coaching, private lessons or equipment sponsorship, her mother said.

“It never dawned on me until the last couple of weeks to even think that something like this would happen at the high school level,” Loveita Moffett said of NIL’s arrival in Delaware. “As a parent, it is exciting, but it’s also scary because when you get involved in contracts, monetary things, at such a young age, you have that fear of somebody taking advantage of situations. You want to think that everybody has the best interest of your child. That’s something I would be concerned about.”

There is also an educational benefit to NIL, Jodi Hollamon said.

“They’re being watched by whatever company is willing to sponsor them and now it teaches them a whole other level of social media responsibility,” she said. “It teaches them the business side of things.”

Red flags are numerous

NIL is, Baylor said, “a little bit of a minefield that we’re walking through.”

High school students are, of course, adolescents going through an often challenging and turbulent time in their lives.

“Adding this element,” Baylor said, “introducing money that’s associated with their athletic skills and abilities, how do other athletes, teammates, fellow students deal with the notoriety, the perception of a student on their team earning money through NIL?”

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Parents, coaches and other adults must also act with best interests of the child in mind, rather than their own, Baylor added.

That NIL Prep Kit specifically mentions potential problems that could result from NIL and areas high school administrators must monitor.

Most importantly, an NIL agreement must have an actual exchange of services. It cannot be a reward for, or based on, athletic achievement, such as scoring a goal or a touchdown or making baskets.

The DIAA rule specifically states that, and also how it is not a condition for staying in or coming to a particular school.

That appears to be a particularly difficult-to-enforce aspect, considering the movement common by Delaware students and the many educational options available beyond traditional public high schools at Christian, Catholic, charter, military, private and vocational-technical schools.

“There’s already a perception out there,” Baylor said, “that this will benefit certain schools over other schools. Some school administrators and athletic directors are really concerned about how this is going to ultimately impact their school and their ability to keep kids at their schools.”

Loveita Moffett, a William Penn High graduate and Colonials coach before moving south to Smyrna, expressed that concern. Knowing the transient nature of the high school landscape in Delaware, “I don’t want it to become like a haves and have nots” situation, she said.

“I’ve been a diehard public-school person all my life,” she added. “I feel like public schools will be at a disadvantage because they will not be able to have the funds to have somebody on staff to manage this. That could be a full-time job for someone in a private school that has access to donor money and is more connected.”

Grant, who put together the aforementioned NIL prep kit, is a professor at Findley University in Ohio who teaches leadership development and social media/branding. He has also been a high school teacher and coach and taught at the University of North Carolina, working directly with athletes on brand development and social media strategy.

“The issues that I've seen arise are from lack of understanding what is allowed, what isn't allowed and how has that been clarified?” Scott said. “It’s gonna be on the state of Delaware association [DIAA] to ensure they have their enforcement strategies and enforcement people in place.”

Many state high school NIL rules are tied into regulations, he said, barring recruiting and influencing students to attend a certain school. Delaware’s specifically state that prohibition. But it’s important, Scott added, to make sure all details are clear in the regulatory framework.

For instance, it’s important to specifically identify who is and isn’t an agent of the school, which could come into question if a local business has booster-club connections or an alumnus is involved in deal-making.

“Are people going to try to push the boundaries?” Scott said. “Probably, but at the same time, that’s why it's so important to educate and educate and educate from a school perspective, including making sure stakeholders know what's allowed, what's not allowed, and make sure everybody's on the same page. So, when those potential concerns arise, you can meet them head-on and say, ‘Hey, that's not allowed.’ ”

Students from any type of school can benefit, not just powerhouse teams and championship programs.

“Everybody who lives in Delaware will have this opportunity,” said Ursuline basketball coach John Noonan, a major NIL proponent. “It’s an opportunity for these kids. It doesn’t just affect the private schools, the Catholic schools, the charters, the military schools. Public school kids too can benefit from this.”

Speaking about athletes statewide, Noonan also expressed the urgency of NIL’s approval in Delaware.

“When our best talent leaves, where does that leave us? And they’re gonna flee,” he said.

Texas, which is full of elite athletes but bars NIL for those in high school, has seen that happen.

If NIL was not enacted, “kids will fly the coop,” Baylor said.

Now, elite athletes in Delaware will have a better and more potentially lucrative reason to stay.

“I don’t see any possible drawbacks because we’re rule followers and we're gonna do it within the spirit of the rule, what it says to do,” Jodi Hollamon said, “which is just promote Jordyn as a high school athlete and promote the game of field hockey.”

Contact Kevin Tresolini at ktresolini@delawareonline.com and follow on Twitter @kevintresolini. Support local journalism by subscribing to delawareonline.com and our DE Game Day newsletter.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: NIL – name, image, likeness – coming to Delaware high school sports