NIL impact on Tennessee high school sports: These Memphis freshmen, sophomores earning thousands of dollars

Jamarion Morrow did not know what to expect when the Tennessee Secondary School Athletic Association, the state's governing body for high school athletics, approved in December that its athletes could benefit from their name, image and likeness.

He knew it was a good opportunity, especially with NIL ramping up at the college level, but he didn’t know how to approach it, knowing he was going to be affected.

Now more than four months later, Morrow, a Germantown sophomore football player, is ready to capitalize on his brand and profit from it.

NIL Deal Marketplace is an online trade publication founded in Memphis and dedicated to covering and connecting the NIL industry and its role in college and high school sports, as well as its broader social and cultural impact.

This particular NIL collective was created to give high school players a chance to not only grow the Memphis marketplace, but also give them a chance to benefit on their brand before they reach college. The idea came recently, following Tennessee high school athletes being able to benefit from NIL. The idea is to get high school players a chance to polish their brand, while also working with other brands through social media promotional posts.

"It was a good way to push my name out there more,” Morrow said of joining NIL Deal Marketplace. “Of course, you get the money and stuff like that. … We were both helping each other by pushing their brand, pushing my name as well.”

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Morrow, whose deal is worth $2,000, is the first of four athletes to sign on with the NIL Deal Marketplace. Whitehaven basketball player Dorion Bowen has a $5,000 deal through the collective, Whitehaven football player Jaden Thomas has a $1,000 deal in place as does Germantown football player Jaden Jones.

All players are freshmen or sophomores.

Each player can sign multiple NIL deals. They have to do a variety of things, which include social media posts on their platforms as part of their deals.

“I've seen everybody else around me getting there and I said someday, it’s going to be my turn,” Bowen said of wanting to jump on NIL opportunities."

The collective is set up where it will use more than the premier athletes.

"You don’t have to be best (athlete),” said Max K. Ean, a publicist for NIL Deal Marketplace. “You just have to be able to use your name, image and likeness in a way that is going make another company look good.”

With the four players getting a jump on NIL as underclassmen, it benefits both NIL Deal Marketplace as well as the players. For the marketplace, it begins to grow their brand as they look to add more Memphis area athletes. For the athletes, it’s a chance to dabble in NIL at the high school level, maximize the financial opportunities that come with it and establish foundation as more NIL opportunities come through the recruiting and college athletics process.

Morrow was an easy decision for NIL Deal Marketplace to go after. His recruiting profile has increased tremendously since his standout sophomore season with Germantown this season. Morrow’s offers include Colorado, UNLV, Purdue, Mississippi State, Louisville, Indiana, Missouri, Oregon and Tennessee.

"It was a great time to get into it knowing that everything was going up as far as my name and my recruiting," Morrow said.

And getting a chance to learn more about NIL now is helping Bowen, Morrow and Thomas have a better approach to recruiting.

“Since I’m already getting the experience now,” Thomas said. “I’ll be a little more ahead of the game and knowing what else I can do to build on my brand.”

Reach Wynston Wilcox at wwilcox@gannett.com and on Twitter @wynstonw__.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: TSSAA and NIL: Memphis high school athletes make thousands of dollars