NIL Library / NIL-004
Indiana Made High School NIL Official and Refused to Call It NIL
When a state finally writes the rulebook on high school NIL, you would expect it to call the thing NIL. Indiana did not. It called it Personal Branding Activities. I work with young athletes, so here is my honest take: that name is not a footnote. It is the whole lesson, and most parents are going to scroll right past it.
In May 2026, WNDU reported that the Indiana High School Athletic Association approved its own version of name, image, and likeness for high school athletes. Starting with the 2026-27 school year, students in Indiana can do branding deals and keep their amateur status. But the rule has a quiet center, and that center is what every parent should notice.
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 in some form. Indiana's version is one of the cleaner examples, because the way the state wrote it tells you exactly what it thinks the athlete actually owns.
The school has to stay out of it
Here is the part that makes Indiana's rule worth talking about. The school is kept completely out of the deal, on purpose. A student can do branding activities only if they do not use their school affiliation and do not wear their uniform during the activity. The school cannot arrange the deal, and the school cannot fund it.
IHSAA Commissioner Paul Neidig laid out the reasoning plainly. He said that unlike the college system, where schools often play a direct role in NIL compensation, the new rule keeps high schools out of arranging or funding deals, so that students benefit independently from their school, without using school branding. He called it a clear distinction between the college model and the educational mission of high school athletics.
Read that again. The state did not just allow these deals. It drew a line around the school and said: this belongs to the athlete, not the team.
What actually counts as personal branding
The approved activities are broader than you might guess. They include developing and monetizing a personal brand through social media, personal appearances, and endorsements unrelated to school athletic participation. And then there is the detail I keep coming back to. The rule also counts non-athletic work like tutoring, personal training instruction, and coaching youth sports for reasonable compensation.
That is a state athletic association saying, in writing, that a kid's brand is bigger than the kid's sport. The presence, the audience, the way they show up in their community, all of it is part of the asset. The rule also draws clear lines on what is prohibited, including anything that references a member school, anything tied to gambling, alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, banned substances, or weapons, and anything used to entice a student to attend a particular school for athletics.
What this means for your athlete
Here is the shift I want every parent to make. Do not think of this as a rule about deals. Think of it as a rule that points directly at your kid.
Strip away the school, the uniform, and the team, the way the rule does, and what is left is the athlete: who they are, how they carry themselves, and what they have built that travels with them when the season ends. The athletes who will actually use a rule like this are the ones who took their own image seriously before a single dollar was on the table. They are not waiting for the rule to mean something. They built the brand first, so the rule has something to work with.
You do not need an agent in ninth grade. You need a foundation: clean photos, a real story, consistency, and an adult in their corner. Indiana basically wrote that idea into law and called it Personal Branding Activities. The state named the asset for you. The work is building it early, while it is quiet, so the one thing that is truly your athlete's stays theirs.
Source: WNDU / 16 News Now (May 4, 2026). This is education and observation, not legal or financial advice.
Source: WNDU / 16 News Now