MADISON, Wis. -- WIAA member schools voted Wednesday not to allow Wisconsin high school athletes to make money off their Name, Image, and Likeness. But sports leaders in the state say it's a sign the conversation and landscape of high school sports is changing.
"I think there's a lot of unknowns," Jeremy Schlitz told News 3 Now Wednesday.
Schlitz is the Athletic Director for the Madison Metropolitan School District. He wasn't able to vote at the WIAA Annual Meeting earlier that day but says he understands why 290 of the 515 schools didn't want to play ball with NIL endorsements.
"I think the specific concerns are really understanding the impact, who can access and how we best communicate that to everybody involved," he said. For one, he said schools, athletic directors and coaches weren't sure what entities could keep supporting a whole school or program the same way, without causing a player entering into NIL to lose their eligibility.
"We want our kids to be able to access NIL but we also want to make sure we can support them through it and not have an unintended consequence where maybe a business unable to support schools in the same way," Schlitz said.
WIAA Associate Director Mel Dow says another big concern was implementation. "Obviously, the current workload that schools have and administrators have about monitoring it?"
According to Dow, high school NIL wouldn't be like college NIL. "This is not to be confused with amateur status of being paid to play."
Badgers at University of Wisconsin-Madison have had the opportunity for endorsements ranging from a free meal, to promoting a business on social media, all the way up to six-figure deals.
High school students would only be able to make money off their persona, not anything associated with their high school program.
"That's obviously their their school, their school team, their conference or the state association," Dow said.
Across the country, 31 state associations have adopted some kind of nil language.
Dow said it's not much different from another student getting a job and creating revenue.
"Albeit if it's the new wave of influencers, or if it's working in camps and clinics and having their name identified with it, because, you know, they're successful at the craft that they have," he said.
According to Dow, under a current rule if a Wisconsin school district wanted to allow one of their athletes to participate in an NIL deal, that athlete would be ineligible to play.
For Schlitz, it's about wrestling with a big change.
"I think it's unfortunate that in education-based athletics, we're seeing outside entities with potential financial interests, you know, take away kind of the sanctity of what the amateur sport and education-based athletics is," he said. "You know, it's something that we know is coming and we want to make sure we do it the right way."
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