NIL Library / NIL-007
That High School NIL Valuation Is Not a Paycheck
A million dollar number just landed next to a high school football player's name, and a lot of parents read it as a check that cleared. It is not. I work with young athletes, so here is my honest take: the number is real, but most families are reading it completely wrong, and the misread is making them panic for no reason.
On May 24, 2026, On3 refreshed its High School Football NIL Valuations, the list that puts a dollar figure next to high school athletes. Every time it updates, it gets passed around. So let me walk through what the number is, what it is not, and what it is actually measuring.
What the number actually is
Here is the part almost everyone skips. On3 explains that the NIL Valuation is a projected annual value, what they call a PAV. It combines Roster Value and NIL Value through an algorithm, and it is built to help athletes, schools, and brands negotiate. Read that again: it is a projection. It is an estimate of what an athlete could be worth. It is not a record of money any athlete has actually been paid.
So when you see a million dollar valuation on a 17 year old, that is not a check that cleared. It is an algorithm's guess at a ceiling. Understanding that one distinction changes how you read every NIL headline for the rest of the year.
What NIL is, in one paragraph
If the term is still fuzzy, NIL 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. It became legal for college athletes in 2021, and it has flowed down to high school, where most states now allow it. A valuation is just one outlet's attempt to estimate that earning potential before any deal exists.
Who sits at the top, and why it matters
Now look at the actual list. The number one valuation belongs to offensive tackle Immanuel Iheanacho of Georgetown Preparatory School in Maryland, listed at 1.2 million dollars. Right behind him are two quarterbacks at a million each: Ryder Lyons of Folsom High School in California and Elijah Haven of Dunham School in Louisiana. Further down sit offensive tackle Mark Matthews of St. Thomas Aquinas in Florida around 837,000 dollars and offensive tackle Cooper Hackett of Fort Gibson in Oklahoma around 737,000 dollars.
Notice the shape of it. The top is heavy with offensive linemen and quarterbacks. Those are not always the players with the flashiest highlight stats. They are positions defined by visibility and recognition. The algorithm is rewarding how known you are, the degree to which people pay attention to you. In a brand economy, the thing that gets valued is the thing people pay attention to. That is not an accident.
The reframe for your family
So the real question is not "how do we get our kid a number like that." The number is downstream of something a family can actually build, which is recognition. Sit with what the valuation is scoring: how known an athlete is. Their audience, their visibility, their name.
And of everything wrapped up in a young athlete's career, recognition is the piece they own outright. They do not own the algorithm. They do not own the projection. They do not control whether a brand ever calls. But the audience the projection is built on top of, the name people recognize, that is theirs, and it travels with them from high school to college to whatever comes next.
When a parent looks at that list and feels behind, the honest reframe is that the families near the top did not win a lottery. Most of them spent years making their kid known, on the field and in how they show up online. The number is just a late scoreboard for work that started long before.
What to do with this
You do not need to chase a valuation. You need to build the thing the valuation is measuring. That means a clean and consistent presence your athlete actually owns, being known for how they show up and not just their stat line, and understanding that recognition built early is what any of these numbers really track. You do not need an agent in tenth grade. You need a foundation and an adult in their corner. Build the thing people pay attention to, and the number takes care of itself.
Source: On3, High School Football NIL Valuations (updated May 24, 2026). This is education and observation, not legal or financial advice.
Source: On3