NIL Library / NIL-023
A Shoe Brand Signed a Class of High Schoolers. Now What?
A shoe company just signed seven high school football players to NIL deals. Two of them have not finished tenth grade. I work with young athletes, so here is my honest take: a brand deal at that age sounds like nothing but a win, and it might be one, but the brand is the only party in that deal with nothing to lose.
In June 2026, On3 reported that Adidas signed seven high school recruits to a class it is calling adizero 7. Most of the group are juniors, class of 2027. Two are class of 2028, which means they are about to start eleventh grade. They have not committed to a college. They already have a shoe deal.
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 shoe deal is one of the clearest forms of NIL there is. A brand pays an athlete to be associated with the athlete's name and audience.
The numbers in this class
The dollar figures around this group are not small. According to On3's valuations, the top player in the class is a junior quarterback already committed to Nebraska, carrying a public valuation of more than seven hundred thousand dollars, ranked number seven among high school football players in the country. Another junior, an edge rusher headed to Ohio State, sits around half a million.
The two youngest players, a receiver out of Charlotte and a cornerback out of South Florida, do not have published valuations yet. That matters, so I want to be precise: the big numbers belong to the juniors, not the sophomores. But the sophomores are in the same signed class. The same brand, the same rollout, the same spotlight, years earlier than any of this used to arrive.
A quick reality check
We used to wait until a player was drafted to put them in a shoe deal. That was the milestone. Now the milestone is tenth grade. When I was coming up, the cleats you laced were whatever was on sale, and a brand would not have known your name if you mailed it to them. These kids are getting the box, the class, the whole campaign, before they have a driver's license. The world changed completely, and fast.
I am not against any of this. The talent is real and the money is real. I just keep landing on the same question. When a national brand sits across from a fifteen or sixteen year old and their parents, who at that table is looking out for the kid?
What this means for your athlete
Here is the shift I want every parent to make. Do not think of a brand deal as something that might happen someday. Think of your kid's name, image, and following as a brand that exists right now, before a single offer shows up.
That is the part people miss. Adidas did not sign these kids because of a contract. It signed them because of a brand they already built: their tape, their name, the audience around them. The contract came after the brand, not before it. So the work is not waiting for the deal. The work is building and protecting the brand early, so that when an offer comes, your family is negotiating from strength instead of saying thank you because something finally arrived.
You do not need an agent in tenth 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 12, 2026). This is education and observation, not legal or financial advice.
Source: On3