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Former California high school football athlete sues CIF for NIL restrictions

Lawrence Andrew Fernandezby: Lawrence Fernandez06/04/25lawandfern
California high school baseball

As the NCAA continues to face legal challenges about NIL (name, image, and likeness), a former California high school football player is suing the California Interscholastic Federation, the state’s governing body for high school sports.

According to Front Office Sports’ Amanda Christovich, Dominik Calhoun filed a class-action lawsuit against the CIF and others because he argues that restrictions on transfers and NIL earnings violate antitrust law. Calhoun filed the lawsuit in the Northern District of California federal court, which is not new to NCAA NIL cases.

If Calhoun’s camp wins the case, it would be difficult to argue for setting limits to the NIL money that high school and college athletes can earn. A portion of the complaint reads, “These policies harm the high school student-athletes who create the economic value exploited by the CIF, its Sections, its member schools, and their commercial partners, and constitute unreasonable restraints of trade in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.”

While the NCAA universally allowed NIL deals in 2021, high school sports have a different scenario. Each state federation determines its NIL rules, with California allowing some forms of NIL engagements. As the complaint stated, while California high school athletes can earn NIL money, they are prohibited from receiving deals from their schools or boosters.

The lawsuit also states, “Collectively, these rules and regulations forbid CIF member schools or CIF Sections from sharing the revenue they receive by licensing their student-athletes’ NIL with those very student-athletes, artificially fixing the price student-athletes are compensated for their NIL at zero.”

Likewise, Calhoun also challenges the strict rules implemented for transferring schools and their corresponding penalties.

In addition to California high school football, Calhoun also competed in track and field for Pittsburg High School. He will play for Boise State starting this fall and has signed some deals in the school’s NIL Collective.