NIL Library / NIL-017
ESPN Put Two High Schoolers on Merch. Here Is the Real Lesson for Parents
For the first time ever, ESPN is selling official merchandise with a high schooler's name on it. Two of them, actually. I work with young athletes, so here is my honest take: this is a great moment for two kids who earned it, and it is also the cleanest lesson about name, image, and likeness that a sports parent will see all year.
On June 16, 2026, ESPN and its high school sports brand, SportsCenter Next, signed two basketball players to merchandising deals. Their names and faces went up on ESPN's merch site the same day. They are now the first high school athletes ever tied to an official ESPN deal like this.
Who got signed
The two players are Kaleena Smith and Beckham Black, and both are the real deal.
Kaleena Smith is a class of 2027 point guard at Ontario Christian in Ontario, California, and the number one ranked girls high school basketball player in the country. This is not even her first time making NIL history. Back in 2024 she signed with Adidas as their first high school women's basketball NIL partner. Last season she helped Ontario Christian win the 2026 CIF State Open Division title, dropped 24 points in the championship game against top seed Archbishop Mitty, and averaged 31.5 points per game as a junior.
Beckham Black is a class of 2027 five-star from Southeastern Prep in Florida, ranked the number six prospect in the country by the Rivals Industry Ranking, and the younger brother of Orlando Magic guard Anthony Black. He was a standout at the NBPA Top 100 camp, a finalist for the 2026 USA Basketball U17 World Cup roster, and averaged 16.4 points per game last season.
What a merch deal actually is
If NIL is still fuzzy, it stands for name, image, and likeness. It is the right of an athlete to earn from their own brand: their name, their photos, their following. A merch deal is the purest form of NIL there is. ESPN is not sponsoring a game or paying for a service. It is selling a product that is nothing but the athlete's name and face. Strip away the team and the highlight reel, and what got bought here is simple. The name. That is the asset. Everything else is built on top of it.
The part the headline skips
Here is the piece I want every parent to sit with. ESPN did not make these two kids famous. It partnered with athletes who had already built something real: a number one national ranking, a state title, years of documented play, and in Smith's case a prior brand deal two years ago. The audience existed long before the network showed up. ESPN just put a price on it and printed it.
That is the whole pattern in one sentence. The brand came to the athletes because of a brand the athletes already had.
ESPN said as much. Kaitee Daley, the network's senior vice president of social, digital, and streaming content, framed it as an audience play, pointing to the way both players "bring their A-game to audience connection both on and off the court." Translated: we are buying a brand that already connects with people. The kids built the audience. The network rented it.
What this means for your athlete
Let me be clear about what this is not. It is not a sign that your kid needs a national merch line or they are falling behind. Almost no athlete will ever get a network call, and that is completely fine. That is not the lesson.
The lesson is that the same rule runs all the way down to every family. The athlete who builds and owns a real brand, their own photos, their own platform, their own story, is the one with leverage when a company finally comes asking. The athlete who built nothing hands over the only copy and lets someone else set the terms.
And there is one more piece that matters more on a merch deal than almost any other kind. When a company wants to sell something with your child's name and face on it, that is not a compliment and it is not a favor. It is a usage rights conversation. Who owns the images, who owns the name use, how long they get it, and what your kid actually gets back. The families who understand that early are the ones who stay in control when the shirt goes up for sale.
You do not need an agent in eleventh grade. You need a foundation: clean photos, a real story, consistency, and an adult in the room who reads before anyone signs. Build the brand and protect it early, so the one thing that is truly your athlete's stays theirs.
Source: On3 (June 16, 2026) and ESPN. This is education and observation, not legal or financial advice.
Source: On3