Two of NYC's Brightest Guards Introduce NIL Deals Back Home

Throughout its history, New York City has been a hotbed for innovation in art, sports, literature, entertainment and nearly every other field. With newly established NIL reform (short for name, image, and likeness) enabling youth athletes to be compensated for their acceptance of endorsements, it was only a matter of time before NYC became the stage for one of the biggest evolutions in modern sports history. And who's leading the way? Two of the area's most promising high school basketball stars.

Johnuel Flands and Ian Jackson, better known as "Boogie" and "Captain Jack," are the first high school athletes in New York City history to sign NIL deals. The pair of five-star sophomores, who play for nationally top-25 ranked programs Archbishop Stepinac High School (White Plains, NY) and Cardinal Hayes (Bronx, NY), signed with the emerging social media platform, Spreadshop last week.

For the next six months, Flands and Jackson will get paid four figures a month to sell merchandise on Spreadshop and make weekly posts about the platform on social media. In recent years, high school basketball players have become viable celebrities with massive social media followings, so it was only a matter of time until they began to cash in on their fame.

But for a development of this magnitude to happen in New York City is a game-changer. Since New York is the biggest market in all sports and entertainment, these deals have the potential to significantly impact the college basketball landscape. Namely, it could help keep New York's best players in New York. .

For several years between the late 2000s and mid-2010s, the area watched an exodus of players leave home and go to school out of state for reasons relating to a lack of opportunity and safety. Yet with more schools, both private and public, greatly improving their situations, the talent level coming out of New York City and its surrounding levels is returning to what it was two and three decades ago. And the addition of NIL's will serve as the cherry on top.