NFTs for High School Athletes? BallerTV's New Plan Pushes the Conversation

Sports fans and politicians have debated whether college athletes should be able to make money from their fame for years. Less commonly debated, however, is whether high school athletes should be able to do the same.

On Tuesday, Pasadena-based youth sports streaming platform BallerTV announced its new plan to allow high school athletes to make money off their names, images and likeness. How? By joining the NFT craze.

The company will sell NFTs that depict video highlights from the final June 8th game at Pangos All-American Camp, an elite, invite-only camp for high school basketball players. This game, called the "Cream of the Crop" game, features the top 30 players from the camp.

BallerTV hopes the potential of these players to become basketball's next legends will encourage consumers to invest in the NFTs.

"These NFTs will give collectors and young athletes the opportunity to capture the first moments of what could very well be storied NBA and professional careers," said BallerTV CTO Kavodel Ohiomoba.

BallerTV hopes the auction will contribute to the larger movement to allow student athletes to get paid, whether through selling NFTs or through other means.

"We're gonna see what the reception is to this," said BallerTV Executive Vice President Sandeep Hingorani. "How do the athletes respond? How does the community respond? Is this something they find interesting? But if that reception is not there, then there are going to be other avenues to explore to allow families and athletes to earn and benefit from the opportunities that are there."

While the NCAA has been slowly moving toward allowing its student athletes to benefit monetarily from their heightened profile, the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) — which writes the rules for most high school sports — remains steadfast against payment for high school athletes.

"High school students participating [in travel or club sports] MUST NOT be allowed to benefit from [their name, image and likeness]," NFHS Executive Director Karissa Niehoff said in a statement earlier this year. "This would completely disrupt the high school environment when these students come into the high school locker room."

Meanwhile, the NBA has been cashing in on the recent NFT craze. NBA Top Shot, for example, a marketplace dedicated to selling video clips of NBA stars as NFTs, has an aggregated market value of $627,894,904, according to NFT site CryptoSlam. Last April, a clip of LeBron James dunking sold for almost $400,000 on the site.