The NIL landscape keeps changing. More precisely, it keeps expanding in reach and significance.
Dan Wolken of USA TODAY Sports provided details on a new NIL deal at high school powerhouse St. John Bosco, a California school which is and has been a central source of USC recruits in addition to elite players at college juggernauts across the country:
Shortly after the powerhouse St. John Bosco high school football team out of Southern California finishes its season opener this Friday, dozens of players will swap their jerseys for T-shirts representing KONGiQ, a sports performance and technology company. The players will then post images of themselves on social media, selling a product they use in their weight room every day.
And by that point, the first of two payments from KONGiQ to cover the 2022 football season will have already landed in their bank accounts.
If there was any doubt that college athletes capitalizing on name, image and likeness rights would trickle down to the high school level, it has now arrived. Though only 16 states and the District of Columbia have currently authorized high school athletes to participate in NIL monetization through their state laws and high school sports governing associations, KONGiQ signing 70-plus players to endorsement deals at one of the top programs in the
country could open the floodgates to something much bigger.
The company formally announced the deals on Monday.“We’re a very collegiate-minded program,” head coach Jason Negro told USA TODAY Sports. “If there’s something colleges are doing, what better way to help our athletes than to provide them the same type of opportunity? I want to be a pioneer at the high school level, and I think we’re doing that at Bosco.”
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