Staff photo / Dan Hiner A Farmers National Bank billboard featuring Youngstown State quarterback Beau Brungard, which sits facing Interstate 680 in Youngstown.

Ohio is now a Name, Image and Likeness state.

The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced on Monday that the state’s athletic governing body passed a referendum allowing for NIL at the high school level.

Ohio became the 45th state to approve NIL, leaving Alabama, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi and Wyoming as the only states that have yet to allow high school athletes to capitalize on their on-field fame.

Athletes can enter into agreements and be compensated for branding, social media, endorsements, appearances and licensing.

The vote passed with 447 schools being in favor, 121 against and 247 abstaining from voting. The NIL framework will go into effect immediately.

OHSAA members voted down a NIL proposal in 2022, 538-254.

“Our member schools helped develop this language,” OHSAA Executive Director Doug Ute said in a press release. “Now the real work begins, because this will be a continually evolving piece of high school athletics. The OHSAA will track NIL deals and make sure that our recruiting bylaws and transfer bylaws are still enforced, which is something our member schools have asked for throughout this process.”

NIL language has been in the works by the OHSAA for the last year and a half. The OHSAA Board of Directors approved the final language on Sept. 26, but a legal filing expedited a vote by six months for high schools throughout the state.

The vote occurred after Jasmine Brown, the mother of Jamier Brown, filed the lawsuit in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on Oct. 15. Jamier Brown, a Wayne High School receiver, is an Ohio State commit and the top receiver in the 2027 recruiting class.

California was the first state to approve high school NIL. It passed back in June 2024.

The NCAA approved NIL for college athletes in June 2021.

Since then athletes from various levels of college athletics have profited through endorsement deals during their college athletic careers.

Springfield athletic director Sean Guerriero said he doesn’t expect the high school sports world to suddenly devolve into chaos, especially since the state passed the referendum with rules that were agreed upon by the schools.

Springfield is a non-open enrollment, so the Tigers wouldn’t be able to recruit anybody away from another school with the promise of money, similar to what has happened in college athletics in the last several years. Additionally, he said since Springfield is a Division VI school, the coaches are already “in the hallways” trying to entice students into joining the school’s teams.

“It was going to happen anyways,” Guerriero said. “Somebody’s gonna take (the OHSAA) to court, somebody’s gonna win. So I’m happy they did do it when they were out front a little bit. They didn’t do that for college football, and now look where it’s at. So I’m glad there’s some regulations on what they can do.”

Guerriero doesn’t expect players to just switch schools all of a sudden. He said it could happen for the high-end athletes in a particular sport, but the majority of the state should be unaffected.

“I don’t think it’ll end up changing too much,” Guerriero said. “How much you gonna throw a high school kid? But I do think, if a kid goes out and got a company and is paid a little bit, I guess it could happen. I don’t think high school kids are going to start making commercials and stuff. I think it’s gonna be more on social media.”