Sports media executive makes bold prediction about NIL's next 'real superstars'

As the chief investment officer for Optimum Sports, Jeremy Carey's job is to have his pulse on what's next in sports marketing.

This week Carey is representing his clients in the advertising industry at the Upfronts, where ESPN, NBC, Fox, and all the major players in sports broadcasting are pitching their multimedia plans for 2025 and beyond.

In a revealing interview with Puck's John Ourand on The Varsity podcast, Carey spoke at length about what he believes is the next untapped frontier in sports marketing: NIL deals for high school athletes.

"Talk about what's going on in the college space now — you've got thousands of guys in the transfer portal moving around all over the place," Carey said. "You've got college coaches ... (St. John's men's basketball coach Rick) Pitino saying it doesn't fit his model to look at high school seniors.

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"Name, image and likeness applies to them as well. You've got some real superstars out there right now in the high school space. Being able to access that, there's also some consolidation of talent happening. Kids are getting free educations to join powerhouse high school teams for good quality educations. And preparatory educations, in terms of what the next step of their athletic careers are going to be."

The reality of the business of amateur marketing is an unfortunate one for public school powerhouses, Carey added.

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"I'm a little torn on it, but I think the value of it moving forward is something we have to have a close eye on," he told Ourand.

The secondary and tertiary effects of money flowing to marketable high schoolers is something that could take years to play out. For now, Carey notes that it could help level the playing field among the best male and female high school athletes — a potential free-market means to empowering the best female figure skaters, gymnasts and other stars who have yet to matriculate from high school.

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Carey suggested that some brands might have to learn lessons the hard way about associating with teenagers.

"Right now you're talking about the 1 percent of the 1 percent who have value in the space," he said. "There's a lot of risk there too, obviously, going in at that level. ... There's brands that we work with that play in the high school space from a supportive role, in terms of using it along the lines of athlete endorsement. I'm not saying we're not going to go there, but there's an element of age that gets involved as well. Eighteen-plus is a lot different than under the age of 18."

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