So I was watching a video with Ali Peek and her guest, Larry Blustein, and they got to talking about the current state of high school and college football. Did you know there is one person to blame for not just the portal but NIL? One person, and he's from Miami - Ruiz. He started the portal and NIL before they were called that. But what I didn't know is this year is the year that NIL will be legal at the high school level. Say goodbye to high school sports too. The bigger and more rich schools will become the elite schools because they can buy an entire team of the best players. IMG is about to go the way of the dodo bird. Why go to IMG when you can go to a public school of elite players? So here in Birmingham, it'll come down to one school dominating the Southern region of the nation - Mountain Brook. Mountain Brook is the 90210 of Alabama, you can't live here unless you come from old money, old families. They have already been able to pick and choose areas in the area that are more affluent, and they have the money to buy an entire team if they want and it'll be interesting to see who will be able to compete with Mountain Brook. Will Thompson be able to compete with them? Really hard to tell because Thompson isn't known for money, their coach is pretty good. They do have new facilities that rival even our Gators but the city of Alabaster is about 30,000. I can't vouch for what Florida high schools are going to become the de facto best programs in the state but what I think is the state is going to have to pull these programs into their own classification so to allow the least NIL-able schools to remain competitive. It won't be crazy bad, because you can only get so many players on a team and the lucrative programs in the state are probably less than 30. Put it this way, there isn't a team in NW Florida that will ever see a state playoff with NIL coming in. Here's the video in case you haven't seen it -
There was a great story from a Washington Redskin player decades ago. A diehard fan told him he didn't care if the 'Skins' lost 13 games...as long as they beat Dallas twice. I feel (almost) the same way, we must beat Miami and FSU or the season is lost.
Northwest Florida hasn’t really been competitive in the last 20 years anyway. Pensacola Catholic is competitive in baseball only because they are private and they funnel kids there from T-ball all the way up. Public schools don’t have a chance.
I saw this earlier too and almost fainted when they said HS kids can get NIL. This is going to be the death of not only college sports, but pro as well. Also how tf are minors going to be allowed to sign legally binding contracts??? What a mother of a future nightmare...
Probably happening already but this is where the georgias of the world will just get the jump on the highest rated "must gets" and feed them an NIL deal by a friend of the program.
Without a doubt, without 1 single doubt. And the ncaa is already warming up their "iNvEsTiGaTiOnS" against FL high schools.
In the state of Florida, children have been given contracts for decades. Just not for athletes. Modeling and acting are well entrenched in several states. Obviously, legal guardians will be involved where the law requires.
When I read this I wonder far more about the payers than the payees: what kind of idiot adult takes their money and pays high school players? Is their life really that small?
Yeah no doubt, and what business would want to tie money into a HS student that possibly has very little to offer in return? Especially small towns. Or, like was mentioned what's going to stop ug, Bama, osu, Texas Oregon, etc from routing money??
One of the local HS teams in my area just won the state title, they were runner up last year. While kids can transfer and get exemptions they aren’t paying kids to go there. The “richer” schools are losing players to this school because the team has done well at getting players to go D1
Secrets are hard to keep, I actually know the parents of one of the kids who xfer from one of the HS to the State champion team, he did it for more exposure plus the HBC was hatted by most of the O so a bunch of kids left 2 years ago. UF actually got one of their DL and almost got a safety from them this year. My son grew up playing with quite a few of them. May happen in the future but the local SB still controls where a kid can go unless they are going private. Now the private schools may start doing it.
Thanks RealGator, I watched as well, very informative, especially about Ruiz. NIL is now changing the landscape of High School football as well. I agree with you about your Mountain Brook comparison. If left unchecked HS and College success will be defined by the highest bidders, biggest financial contributors. Just lovely.