The Georgia High School Association’s “dead period” of mandatory inactivity is over for this summer, but unless Peach State prep athletes want it to be a permanent thing, they best heed the GHSA’s warning.
The GHSA recently sent a letter to each of its member schools with a clear message regarding the eligibility of their student-athletes: Don’t join the club.
Name, image and likeness collaboratives (referred to as “NIL Clubs” in the letter) have become a major source of income for many prominent college athletes and are powerful recruiting tools.
The NIL Club is a business that provides its website subscribers with exclusive content from its athletes, and it claims to have more than 200,000 registered college athletes who have earned in excess of $10 million since 2021, the same year the NCAA lifted its ban on endorsements. The athletes are compensated by the NIL Club from money raised through subscriptions.
The NIL Club recently made its services available to high school athletes, and according to GHSA executive director Robin Hines in an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, nearly 100 Georgia prep athletes signed up in the opening days.