A junior basketball standout from Union High School with thousands of followers on social media, Brooklynn Haywood has a couple of partnership deals to endorse companies and products

Paul Valencia
ClarkCountyToday.com

At initial glance, it seemed like another video posted on a local athlete’s popular Instagram account.

Only this one was different.

Described as a day in the life of basketball standout Brooklynn Haywood, we hear the voiceover and see her morning routine, preparing breakfast.

On this day, though, before she hits the gym, she takes a trip to a local orthodontics office to get her teeth scanned.

Haywood describes the advantages of Invisalign, an alternative to traditional braces. 

It turns out, Haywood, one of the top high school girls basketball players in the country, is a paid endorser for Invisalign.

Yes, paid.

A junior at Union High School, Haywood has more than 55,000 followers on her Instagram page. She is more than a brand, though. She is a special talent, considered one of the top 30 players in the nation in her class.

On Friday, Haywood and the Union Titans will be facing league-rival Camas for the first time this season in a matchup that is sure to pack the Camas High School gymnasium. Camas is the defending state champion, and Union is a program on the rise. Haywood is averaging 33.7 points per game for the Titans, who are 10-1 this season.

Off the court, it is not exactly business as usual for Haywood. Because basketball has now become, at least partly, a business play.  

Name, Image, Likeness deals, or NIL, became a major player in college athletics as soon as the NCAA allowed athletes to profit from their name, image, and/or likeness in 2021. Just a few years later, NIL deals are a factor in recruiting, with many athletes transferring schools in search of more money, more branding. 

In 2022, officials in Oregon announced that Oregon high school athletes would be able to have NIL deals, as well.

Few people realized that high school athletes in Washington have had the opportunity to capitalize on their own image for years.

“It’s been available for as long as I can recall,” said Mick Hoffman, the executive director for the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association. “We clarified the language a couple years ago just to make sure people fully understood it.”

Before Hoffman took the WIAA job in 2019, he spent decades in Southwest Washington as a coach and athletic administrator. 

“Kids have always been able to earn an income,” he said.

There are rules that athletes must follow, but yes, high school athletes in Washington can be paid using their talent and brand.

Hoffman said the WIAA does not track NIL deals. There is no reason for the deals to be reported to the WIAA. The WIAA would only get involved if there was a report of a rules violation.

While endorsing a product, the student-athlete cannot use any imagery of the high school she attends, nor can she wear any school gear.

“It has to be their name or image or likeness,” Hoffman said. “It can’t be connected to their school.”

In that video that was posted last summer, Haywood is wearing her personal clothing, athletic gear, and nothing in the video describes her as a Union High School athlete. 

Haywood said she and her family were contacted by an agency when Haywood was playing in Overtime Select, a league for the top 15- to 18-year-olds in the nation to gather for weeks of basketball during the summer. 

“They reached out and told us Invisalign wanted to do this. I signed a contract and started wearing them,” Haywood said.

Beyond Haywood’s talent, she also had already built a brand. Or, more accurately, Brooklyn said, her dad built her band.

“I don’t run my basketball Instagram. That’s my dad,” she said. “When I first started playing basketball, I wasn’t known at all.”

A combination of natural talent and an appetite to work harder on her game than most of her peers, Haywood became a phenom of sorts in the youth basketball world. Her father, Mark Haywood, started posting videos of a young Brooklynn, making shot after shot.

“That’s how it all started. That’s why people know who I am right now,” Brooklynn said. “I’m super thankful for him doing that.”

Her mother Jennifer is the “supervisor” of Team Haywood.

That teamwork led to quite the following. Before Brooklynn played a game of high school basketball, she had more than 50,000 followers on social media.

That is a lot of eyes, and a company such as Invisalign saw an opportunity.

It was only the beginning. Brooklynn Haywood also recently agreed to a deal with FloatWell, a whole body wellness spa in Vancouver.

“I go there almost every day,” she said, noting it is a great spot for recovery after a workout

Look for FloatWell videos and images to be on Haywood’s social media very soon.

Hoffman said the WIAA modeled its policy to one similar in use in California. There, many of the athletes in southern California were also in show business. 

“We didn’t feel we could restrict a kid from having a job,” Hoffman said. “They just can’t have it tied to amateur sports, which is their school.”

It would be an unfair advantage for schools to get involved in any NIL deal, Hoffman said. An individual can pitch for a company, on his or her own, but if a school sets up a deal, then that would be a problem for the WIAA.

“We’re trying to keep amateur sports from being an arms race,” Hoffman said. 

Haywood said she is satisfied with the compensation. She is not getting rich through any of these deals. For Invisalign, she is using the product for free — a substantial cost as the aligners and care can cost anywhere between $3,000 and $9,000 — plus she is being paid a fee for the videos she posts.

Haywood has one more AAU season before she picks a college — she has dozens of scholarship offers — and the money will help with some of the travel expenses associated with club basketball and going to elite leagues and camps.

It also gives Haywood a head start on what to expect in college, when her NIL deals are expected to bring in serious money.

She also tries to keep everything in perspective. She has her priorities, too. She is a straight-A student.

“If I ever got anything below an A, I’d probably cry,” Haywood said. 

And it is not just because her parents have high demands for her academic life.

“I hold myself to that standard, too,” Brooklynn Haywood said. 

In the next year and a half, before college, more NIL opportunities could present themselves to Haywood.

“If it comes, it comes. At the same time I didn’t start playing basketball for NIL. I started playing basketball to have fun. I love basketball. If it comes, I’ll be so grateful. It will be awesome. But if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. I’ll still be grinding.”

So far this season, basketball has been really fun at Union. 

“We wrote down our goals. We all share the same goals. That helps. We are playing for each other,” Haywood said of the Titans. “We can’t win with one person. Playing as a team is going to help us get to our goals. That’s the big thing, being on the same page.”

So, what are the team’s goals?

“I don’t know if I can share that,” Haywood said. “That’s for us.”

She does love being part of this wave of opportunity for her sport. The WNBA had one of its most successful seasons following record-breaking ratings for NCAA women’s basketball. Locally, Camas won the Class 4A state title last season, and Union is hoping to make it to the state tournament this season.

“We might be the underdogs, but don’t count us out,” Haywood said with a smile.

Oh, about that smile … according to her paid partnership videos, Brooklynn Haywood says she is one step closer to her perfect smile.

Brooklynn Haywood, making her pitch as a basketball standout.