Ohio High School Athletic Association Executive Director Doug Utes testimony Tuesday afternoon in front of the Ohio House of Representatives Education Committee shed light on name, image and likeness (NIL) in Ohio high school sp orts since NIL became officially permissible in November 2025.Of approximately 350,000 OHSAA student-athletes statewide, only 32 NIL agreements have been reported, Ute wrote in testimony on the House Education Committee website.Roughly half of those involve commission-based arrangements tied to promotional codes shared on social media platforms. Of the remaining agreements, the vast majority consist of modest combinations of products and limited compensation, with a total value generally under $1,000. These opportunities allow students, who also happen to be athletes, to explore legitimate entrepreneurial opportunities within carefully established, education-based guardrails.Ute testified as an interested party Tuesday afternoon during an Ohio House of Representatives Education Committee Meeting regarding House Bill 661.Under the proposed House Bill 661 legislation, a student participating in OHSAA middle or high school interscholastic athletics would be prohibited from earning compensation from NIL. State Representatives Adam Bird (R-New Richmond) and Mike Odioso (R-Green Township) announced the bill Feb. 3."I think that it is very clear to me and others who are listening to school leaders across the state of Ohio that we are going down a path that schools in Ohio do not want to go, Bird said Tuesday afternoon.Odioso said Tuesday he wanted to remind the committee about a Florida high school basketball coachs written proponent testimony in opposition to how NIL has been conducted in its state.From what I have personally witnessed in the state of Florida over the past 27 years, the implementation of the NIL a few years ago has been, at best, a huge mess, wrote Bishop Verot (Fort Myers, Fla.) coach Matt Herting. Trying to determine what is a legitimate NIL deal compared to an impermissible benefit, distinguishing between a booster and an interested business, or trying to determine if the student athlete was recruited with the lure of an NIL deal or not are huge problems with no real solutions.Ute was one of seven individuals to provide testimony for the second hearing of the Ohio bill Tuesday. Ute and Ronald Sayers, OHSAA Senior Manager of Eligibility and Technology, testified as interested parties.Five other individuals were listed by the House Education Committee as opponents including Columbus-based attorney Luke Fedlam, who represented 2027 high school star wide receiver Jamier Browns family in the October 2025 lawsuit against the OHSAA.The OHSAA emergency referendum vote in November was in response to a Franklin County judges temporary restraining order due to a lawsuit filed by Brown's family Oct. 15.High school principals voted on behalf of the schools during the OHSAA emergency referendum vote. There were 447 schools in favor of the referendum and 121 schools voting against, while 247 schools abstained from voting.We had a small pocket of abstentions and then a group of people who didnt vote, Ute said. I dont consider the people who didnt vote an abstention. They just didnt vote. We can all speculate why. They would have to say why. I do feel comfortable based on my conversations nationally with other state leaders with our guardrails, our policy that we set in to protect our member schools, our student-athletes and the association.Fedlam defended the OHSAAs NIL policy in testimony in front of the committee.If Ohio is concerned about recruiting inducements, compliance gaps, or exploitation, Ohio should follow what most other states have done: regulate, educate, and enforce, Fedlam said in written testimony.HB 661 takes a different approach. It eliminates a right and claims protection as the justification, despite the absence of data showing that regulated high school NIL has produced the widespread, unavoidable harms its proponents predict.After the OHSAA membership voted down NIL in 2022 by more than a two-to-one margin (538 to 254), the states high school sports governing body has maintained dialogue with school leaders while its legal counsel reviews best practices from across the country, according to Ute.In November 2024, we convened a committee of approximately 25 school administrators to evaluate policy options and provide direction for Ohio, Ute wrote. Then over the past year, this issue has been discussed at numerous regional meetings with administrators offering additional feedback afterward. While it is true that pending litigation accelerated the timing of the final vote, the national landscape made it clear that action in Ohio was both foreseeable and necessary.Ute wrote that the membership-approved framework establishes guardrails, a term often used by proponents and opponents of the bill since testimony started last week.The OHSAA policy includes prohibiting collectives, requiring disclosure to the Columbus-based office, protecting school intellectual property and limiting compensation to legitimate personal branding activities such as appearances, endorsements, licensing and mostly social media promotion.No one in Ohio wants to see interscholastic athletics evolve into a collegiate-style pay-to-play model, Ute said. We believe the current regulations strike an appropriate balance of protecting student-athletes while preserving the integrity of high school sports. With most states now permitting NIL, and participation remaining extremely limited, such thoughtful guardrails were essential to prevent recruiting, pay-for-play, and the commercialization of high school sports.State Representative Sean P. Brennan (D-Parma) asked Ute what impact House Bill 661 would have on the OHSAA's future."I think very little impact in terms of what we do operationally because there are so few athletes," Ute said. "Thirty-two of 350,000 does not impact what we do to provide the interscholastic activities. I think we're always worried about someone else, like a court putting in parameters in for what we do."Sayers said the OHSAA typically has 1,100 to 1,400 transfers per year.Ute said three OHSAA positions are dedicated to compliance and another position will be added next year due to the number of transfers. Ute said it is unrelated to NIL.Odioso asked Ute if he is concerned NIL would increase the transfer pressure. Ute said he does not have that concern.Ohio has the third-largest participation rate in high school sports nationally behind Texas and California, according to the National Federation of State High School Associations.SIGN UP: Subscribe to our high school sports newsletter ...read more read less