Category Archives: NIL

Honoring the Best in College Football, My Dilemma, and My Thinking (So Far)

21 Friday Nov 2025

Posted by in Media, NFL draft, NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

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Today, permit me to think out loud on a topic that’s been tying me up in knots for the past several weeks. It’s the ITL All-22, my way of honoring the college executives and teams doing the best jobs, and I’m trying to figure out how to attack it. I’m planning on introducing it at our annual NIL symposium in February at the Combine. I’m also going to solicit your opinion on it, especially if you think I’m way off track.

The original idea: Recognize the top executives in a college football world that is becoming more NFL-like in its model, yet at the same time more independent of the league (few college GMs, scouting directors and DPPs aspire to work in the league anymore) and growing more professional all the time.

The bumps in the road: Honoring the top executives and scouts in the league is much easier than doing the same on the college level. We’re talking 32 teams with, on average, about 20 members of the scouting department. Though NFL front offices are far from homogeneous, you still have three basic strata on the college side: scouting assistants and coordinators; area and national scouts; and director-level scouts who are managing things and making the big decisions. On the pro side, it’s usually two evaluators and a director. However, when it comes to college, it’s almost like no two GMs have the same job description, and while some teams (like Oklahoma) are building almost an exact replica of an NFL team, others are much more traditional, letting the coaches do much or most of the scouting. That’s to say nothing of the fact there are:

  • 136 college football teams on the FBS level
  • Four “power conferences” and five more who have far fewer resources
  • Despite the acceptance of revenue-sharing, there’s a wide variety of funding among schools (even within the P4)

The thinking on how to arrive at the winners: After two weeks of presenting my thoughts to GMs and scouting directors across college football (P4 and G5), via text and in-person visits, it seems there are three groups that could offer help. They are:

  • The agents who do business in the transfer portal and get an up-close (if adversarial) look at schools, big and small, on an annual basis
  • The GMs themselves, who at least have a handle on the job and what it takes to have success
  • The media that follow the transfer portal and the business of college football the closest.

Of course, all three come with drawbacks.

  • Who even are the agents doing the most business in the portal? There isn’t a list anywhere. Talk to members of college personnel departments and they tell you the number of people texting them a list of “their guys for the portal” seems to double every day.
  • In speaking to college GMs — and make no mistake, they are just a small part of the people making the portal work at their respective schools — and they say they don’t have enough of a handle on college football at large. Most are familiar with schools in their area, or schools in their respective conferences, but not the whole country.
  • We’re still at a point, media-wise, where there is a very, very small number of people covering the business of college football as it relates, specifically, to the portal and roster management. What’s more, the temptation would be there to give preference to the GMs who gave them the most access.

Here’s where I am: I need to come to some kind of decision, really, by Dec. 1, so this is what I’m thinking.

  • There are just too many key people making decisions to recognize just GMs. So I think I’m going to make it a team award and ask GMs to accept on their respective teams’ behalf at our symposium at the NFL Combine in February.
  • I have to cut the numbers some, so I am thinking the only teams eligible would be those that are bowl-eligible. It’s not a perfect metric, but hopefully, the teams doing the best job will rise to the top next year or soon after.
  • I think I have to break it down 14:8, P4 to G5. It’s only fair. Otherwise, it’s going to be 22 big schools.
  • Again, maybe not the best way of doing things, but I think I’m going to survey the GMs (or the GM-equivalent) on each draft-eligible team and see what we come up with. Hopefully it won’t be mission impossible finding their emails. Schools tend to publish a general football email on the team website, but hopefully I can get past that.
  • My guess is that I’d provide ballots to them via email and solicit their votes most of December, then count the ballots, determine the winners (and notify them), and hope the lion’s share of them can make it to Indy in a few months.

Anyway, that’s where I am right now. Am I off base? DM me (@insidetheleague) or email me (nstratton at insidetheleague dot com) and let me know. Thanks for your help, and thanks for reading.

Rumblings and Buzz from a Busy Football Week

14 Friday Nov 2025

Posted by in Agents, All Star Games, NIL, Scouts

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Man, it’s been a busy week, and there was a lot we didn’t have time to get into our Rep Rumblings (or give proper attention to). Here’s a look at some of this week’s developments in the business of college and pro football.

  • You don’t often see agents change firms after Halloween, but Evan Brennan has, moving from UA Sports to JL Sports. His arrival gives JL 10 NFLPA-certified contract advisors. Agency owner Joe Linta, who was 18th among all agents with 31 active NFL clients on our last count, gets a hard-working presence in the Northwest who continually turns up Day 3/UDFA types that beat the odds. Per NFLPA rolls, Brennan, who was certified in 2013, had 11 active clients as of this month.
  • Also getting a new address is Arlington, Va.-based Chitta Mallik, who’s taking his 16 years of experience to Jordan Sports Group, headed by newly certified contract advisor Miles Jordan. Jordan has already built a thriving NIL presence, and Mallik arrives to give his firm a veteran league presence. We’re told Mallik isn’t the only agent arriving from Dreampoint Sports; also advising Jordan Sports Group will be Tony Paige, who co-founded Dreampoint. Paige, a nine-year NFL playing veteran, has been in NFL player representation since 1994. Mallik and Paige were also previously with Vanguard Sports Group.
  • In an era where the costs of player representation are going up and up, it’s become commonplace for smaller agencies to develop affiliations. Some of them are highly informal, but others involve LLCs, contracts and specialized language. It’s a little more trouble, but sometimes it pays off, as it did for Premier Athlete Advisors LLC, which recently won a legal victory over its previous partner firm, Enter-Sports MGT LLC. Though the NFLPA continually pushes licensed contract advisors to settle their difference through its grievance process, time and again, agents complain that their rulings don’t resolve things. The people at Premier set up their venture with Enter-Sports as an agreement between LLCs, taking things outside the bounds of the Players Association. Enter-Sports is now on the hook for almost $38,000, per the story.
  • We try to interview a former NFL scout each week as part of our Catching Up feature in the Friday Wrap, and this week, it’s former Broncos, Chiefs and Vikings scout Roger Jackson (he also had a five-year playing career). Most scouts who retire from the job ride off into the sunset, playing golf and chasing grandkids. Not Roger, who instead saw a need for helping underprivileged kids in his hometown of Macon, Ga. He founded the Motivating Youth Foundation 18 years ago, and it’s made a difference in countless lives. To keep it going, instead of enjoying retirement, he knocks on doors. “I can raise money,” he said with a laugh this week. “I beg. And I’ll come back next week. ‘Thought you might have changed your mind.’ Until they say, ‘we gotta give this joker something, or he’s gonna come back next week,’ and I sure am.” Make sure to check out our interview with Roger in tomorrow’s Friday Wrap.
  • Our November Zoom session for ITL clients was Wednesday, and in it, we highlighted the density of all-star competition from Jan. 4-11. In the first week-and-a-half of the year, NFL teams will be tasked with covering the FCS Showcase in Nashville (Jan. 4-5); the Hula Bowl in Central Florida (Jan. 5-10); the Fiesta Bowl (Jan. 8) and Peach Bowl (Jan. 9) as part of the College Football Playoffs; and the College Gridiron Showcase and Dream Bowl, both in the Metroplex Jan. 9-11. It’s a dilemma for scouting staffs, and we discussed how teams are planning on covering things (or not covering them) in Tuesday’s post.

We’re just getting started. If you love the college and pro game, make sure to check out our newsletter, which goes out at 7:30 p.m. EST tomorrow. Register for it here.

Points of Interest Following Conversations with Multiple College Personnel Staffers

31 Friday Oct 2025

Posted by in Getting started, NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

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There was a time when pretty much everyone working in a college football personnel office aspired to work in the League. That’s not the case anymore, and that was underlined this weekend as I spent a few days talking to personnel staffers at local schools or who were in town for games this weekend.

The people working in higher-level positions on college personnel staffs are highly knowledgeable of the life and work of today’s area scout, and they are none too excited about taking such a position. Too much volatility, not enough power, not enough pay. The people I spoke to would instead want some kind of administrative position that also gave them say in personnel decisions and the ability to make their own evaluations. That’s just not how the NFL is set up, which is why the enthusiasm for going to the pros is waning, at least based on the conversations I’ve had and am having. Ironically, more area scouts than ever are asking me if I’ve heard of any college jobs they might be able to fill.

Also interesting:

  • Schools are sending more members of their evaluation team out on the road to see players in person, closer to a simulation of the NFL model. The problem they’re running into is that they are limited in the number they can send out, and those people must be designated in advance with the compliance office. If there’s one change that seems unanimous, schools would like to see the rules eased so they can do more in-person scouting. 
  • One thing I learned that was surprising: we’re starting to see college grads who didn’t work in a personnel office during their pre-degree days begin to volunteer in a different school’s personnel office (for free, remember) in an effort to get hired somewhere. Often, they move in with a relative within driving distance of a school, grind tape and do whatever they have to do, and work until an opportunity arrives. Very interesting. Schools are seeking out potential volunteers by sifting through LinkedIn and social media.
  • The CAC is still a thing, though in these days when players are staying in college longer than ever, it doesn’t seem to play such a crucial role. 
  • Executives I spoke to said he’s happy to work with NIL agents, and even encourages these relationships. He only wishes there was some kind of regulating body that maintained standards. 
  • We in Texas think of the Metroplex (Fort Worth and Dallas) as one big city, almost, but it’s not. In fact, some schools only recruit from different regions of the Fort Worth/Dallas megalopolis, and don’t like the makeup of players from other sections. One Metroplex school recruits Houston more heavily than it does Dallas. 
  • With the new portal window in early January, December looks like it will be similar to the NFL’s “legal tampering” period, only it will be a month instead of a week. That’s unlucky for the teams in bowl play but a big benefit for the CFP teams that will still be playing in January. It’s going to be especially warmly received by G5 schools who’ve grown accustomed to P4 schools picking off starters in late May. Try finding a key corner, left tackle or outside receiver a week before summer training starts. Especially one you can’t pay. 
  • One downside of the new January portal window, at least in Texas, is that state schools begin the new semester two days (I think) before the portal closes. No enrollment equals no eligibility, so Lone Star State colleges are really going to have to move quickly to close deals, then get players registered for classes, in the space of just a few days.
  • One way bigger schools are getting away with staying under the rev-share cap, but getting talented high school players in, is by paying them their Year 1 NIL share before they get to campus. Some high schoolers are getting $800,000 lump sum payments that don’t count against the $20.5 million as long as they are done post-graduation and pre-enrollment.
  • There is still a small number of NFL agents working in the portal, relatively speaking. I spoke to one official who had only dealt with two NFLPA-certified contract advisors over the past year. Here’s another phenomenon: we’re starting to see college staffers quit, then immediately turn into portal agents representing the players at the school where they formerly worked. Unethical, maybe, but totally legal.
  • While some players have a big week on the field and then try immediately to turn that into NIL dollars, the G5 GM I spoke to this weekend basically said he’d like to see one of his school’s players try that. Hopefully, as the market of players grows, the number of outlandish asks will be reduced.
  • There will not be a Big 12 Combine this year, we’re told. That’s a big story, as the conference had tried for two years (despite scouts’ protests) to aggregate its schools’ March workouts into one made-for-TV event. It was never as efficient as hoped, and didn’t score ratings. Now, apparently, it’s officially gone. 
  • There seems to be a dissatisfaction with Hudl, both from a cost standpoint (the company recently raised its prices) and a services standpoint (limited expansion of new services). That’s not stopping anyone from subscribing, though. It’s a must-have if you want to be part of college football, one official insisted, and it’s true. It has no competition and a tremendous head start on anyone else trying to get into the space.

The dialogue isn’t over. Want to continue the conversation? Register for the Friday Wrap, which is free and comes out this evening.

What To Do If You Failed the Agent Exam Twice

09 Tuesday Sep 2025

Posted by in Agent Exam, Agents, Getting started, NIL

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The day that the NFL Agent Exam results come out — in this case, last Thursday — is a very exciting one. It’s an awesome feeling to see some of the hundreds of people we work with during the pre-exam phase realize they are going to get to live their dreams, and I get to share that celebration with them.

On the other hand, for those who get bad news, there’s pretty much nothing to say to minimize the pain. That’s especially true of those who fail for a second time and who are staring at a five-year wait (and another $2500) just to try again.

Today, I’ve given a lot of thought to what to tell those people. Here’s what I came up with.

Don’t let this defeat you. Let’s start here. If you are even qualified to take the exam, you have a secondary degree and a clean record financially and criminally. This means there are a lot of things you can do in life. We estimate that about a quarter of test-takers pass on the first try and about half pass on the second try. This is easily the toughest agent exam of the four majors. If you come up short, you are far from alone, and you shouldn’t let this define you.

Consider an appeal. The testing service the NFLPA uses is far from perfect, and I’ve heard of at least one new agent who passed despite long delays (including two complete computer shutdowns in the last hour of taking the exam). I also heard about odd experiences at the testing center in July (like site officials disallowing materials the NFLPA clearly allows). If this was you, don’t be a martyr. I think you have 30 days to appeal the results. Don’t mess around. Hire an attorney if needed.

Really decide if you want to stay on this journey. There is no shame in turning around. This business eats people alive. You have talent. Decide if you want to use it on people who, in many cases, will not appreciate you. I’m just trying to be honest.

Take a sales job somewhere. For new agents, the job is not really about negotiation (popular misconception). It’s about sales. You’re selling yourself. If there’s one reason why most agents fail, it’s because they are not comfortable with the vagaries of talking to others, listening to them, figuring out their hopes and fears, and addressing them . . . which is pretty much what sales is. You won’t be able to succeed in this industry without sales talent. Oh, and one other thing.

Save your money. The other main reason people fail in this industry is lack of resources. You’re looking at $10,000, minimum, to get one player ready for the draft these days (or at least one who’s worth representing). Believe me, people try to do it without money, but the overwhelming majority fail. Go out and try to save $20,000-$30,000 in the next five years, and then come back ready for war.

Embrace life as an NIL agent. If you want to really see what this business looks like, go out and try to represent high school and college players seeking to make money in the portal or otherwise. We are in a truly unique time when there’s a chance to make lots of money representing players in a largely unregulated environment with almost no start-up costs. Success is about seizing opportunities, and there’s lots of opportunity on the NIL front. You might even realize you’re good at it and decide you don’t need to work on the NFL side. Really. That might happen.

If you’re in this difficult but select group, I hope you found this helpful and maybe even a little encouraging. I have some idea of what you went through to get here, and can only imagine the frustration. But you can still make something great happen. Just give yourself a chance.

Interested in How to Enhance Your Chances in the Portal (and beyond)? Check This Out

11 Friday Jul 2025

Posted by in NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

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Wednesday, I was honored to speak to a little less than 100 high school and college players, parents, coaches, NIL agents and NIL agent hopefuls as part of the NIL Explained Zoom session sponsored by Tim Lowney of Lowney Sports. It was a lot of fun, and though I only was given 10 minutes, I took 16. Even at that, I was talking pretty quickly, as you can see in the video segment I published Thursday.

My discussion centered mainly on player evaluation (on both the college and pro levels) and the changing college and pro football landscape, at least as I see it. In case you missed it, the following are the notes I prepared for my presentation.

No one knows what the future holds (and beware of anyone who says they do).

    1. The new reality is that it’s going to take a monumental sum of money to play football
    2. The P4 college GMs I talk to seem confident that they will find the moneyThe G5 schools . . . are hopeful (but that’s all)
    3. There is surely more litigation on the way

    Football is a relationship business. Make sure to align yourself with those who know more people than you do.

    1. Don’t want to hire an agent? OK, but the right one can be very helpful
    2. Know who you hired and understand that there is no certification process for NIL agents
    3. Just because an agent is NFLPA-certified doesn’t mean he’s an expert (on anything)

    Player evaluation is going through drastic changes that are reshaping how teams choose talent (college and pro).

    1. NFL scouting staffs are getting younger while owners are forcing more analytics
    2. College staffs are weighing incorporation of an NFL scouting model (maybe)Beware of non-NFL/college affiliated “scouts”
    3. College GMs are part financial experts, part scouts, part other stuff

    The best way to be a marketable player is to be a good player.

    1. Sometimes, you can spark interest w/colleges via social media
    2. The NFL doesn’t normally respond to social media performance
    3. Your HS pedigree (5-star, etc.) means far more on college side than pro side

    The key to good decisions is knowing your market value. Be honest with yourself.

    1. Don’t trust recruiting services
    2. You get what you pay for
    3. Your NFL value may be different from your NIL/portal value (and probably does)

    What do you think? Was I off-base? Was I pretty accurate? Let me know at @insidetheleague on Twitter. For more analysis of the game, make sure to check out our newsletter, the Friday Wrap, which you can register for here.

    Thinking and Talking about the $20.5M Schools Need in the Revenue-Sharing Era

    13 Friday Jun 2025

    Posted by in NIL, Scouts

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    Last week, the news broke that revenue-sharing is here. It’s a big story and represents major change in college football, but I think there’s something that’s being ignored: $20.5 million is a lot of money, and raising it is not going to be easy for anybody.

    I should start by saying most scouts I’ve known are not especially business-minded. They just expect that the money to do things will be there, so I’m not picking on anyone in the industry for whistling past the graveyard when it comes to money. Still, it doesn’t make it any less true that coming up with the dollars is going to mean great pressures, and they may eventually fall on people in the industry.

    At any rate, I texted with several friends at the GM/DPP level at P4 schools. Their response to how their athletic departments would raise the money varied.

    • One referred to a donor drive at his previous school. He didn’t mention what the results were, and I didn’t ask. I just don’t see an annual donor drive not succumbing to fatigue from the alumni.
    • One pointed out that Michigan — the mighty Wolverines — have already announced a 10 percent staff cut due to a revenue decline associated with fewer football home games this season.
    • One said he expects schools to raise money the old-fashioned way — ticket prices and student fees. OK, but I don’t think the old ways are going to be enough. Maybe I’m wrong. He also said he expects cuts to football departments: “Hard to have 50 recruiting, creative or even analysts positions when you have to pay the players.”
    • Only two admitted concern about financial pressures. One said that some schools will get half the sum from athletic department revenues (others will get all of it from there). His will not. I suspect his school is not in the minority. The other one, though feeling far more secure about his own school’s prospects, admitted that “there’s very likely to be teams that don’t have that lying around.”
    • One expressed optimism that schools would come up with the cash because they always have. I’d say that’s accurate, but I still am not confident the money will come without strings attached.

    Not many of them thought private equity would be necessary, though I don’t share that opinion. Just this week, we started seeing stories about schools like Alabama, Purdue, Penn State and UCLA and how they are weighing capital infusions. That’s a really big deal. Private equity doesn’t care about tailgating, character development, a band’s performance at halftime, percentage of players who earned their degrees, or anything else. They care about making money. Even as cynical and money-focused as college football has become, that’s a new frontier.

    I spoke to a friend who’s knowledgeable about this things, and he said he sees a plus to the new demands because (a) it might force schools to cut back on their excessive staffing and (b) might even curb coaches salaries (though he admitted that’s a long shot). OK, maybe, but I don’t know if a few cuts here and there will be enough to make a difference.

    I don’t know if I got any real answers, but I did get confirmation that not all schools will come up with the money the same way, and obviously, this is not going to be a level playing field financially. Like everyone else, I guess I’ll be watching closely to see which schools do this successfully, and which ones figure things out that others can’t. But I have this gnawing suspicion that many will be hurt by these new changes. We’ll see.

    Here’s My Advice to NFL Scouts Seeking College GM Jobs

    21 Friday Mar 2025

    Posted by in Getting started, NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

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    It started during all-star season, when a few scouting friends told me to keep them in mind if I heard of any college GM openings. It’s gotten busier lately as friends at two P4 schools asked for recommendations on filling a few openings. The pro-to-college pipeline is roaring, and it’s definitely got people on both sides of the divide talking.

    It got me thinking about what kind of advice I’d give an NFL scout seeking to make the transition to college. Here are a few things to think about.

    G5 schools are looking to hire people with high school contacts; P4 schools are seeking candidates with NFL ties: This should be fairly obvious. Though the bigger schools want to tout their NFL bona fides in the race to attract portal talent, mid-majors are still trying to develop high school talent. For that reason, it’s going to be harder to land jobs in the smaller conferences. Plan accordingly.

    You better be relational: It’s not that scouts don’t want to talk to agents, or that they think they’re better than them or whatever. At the end of the day, however, being a good scout lends itself to independence and self-motivation. However, you’ve got to step outside your comfort zone, regularly, if you want to work in the college space, especially if most of your experience is in pro football.

    Connections with agents are a plus: We filled the room with schools at our symposium on the Friday of the NFL Combine. I felt like we put together a good program, but there’s one reason why so many schools were represented. It’s because we had almost every major NIL agency represented there.

    Have a decent understanding of the bigger financial picture: I get it. That’s not your problem. But you better understand that big-money hedge funds and deep-pocketed investors are moving into college football as they hope to get a piece of a school’s athletic department before the school makes a move to a major conference or lands a fat broadcast deal. Everything is changing so quickly that you risk professional suicide if you don’t see where things are going.

    Don’t try to break the bank: Scout salaries are rising (slightly), but nowhere near the way they’re rising on the college side. I know the headlines promise lucrative salaries instantly, but if I’m an NFL scout who doesn’t have a clear path to GM in the NFL, I’d be willing to take one step back financially to take two forward, given the trends.

    Get representation: The trend among scouts is to not seek an agent until you get to the director level. I think it’s wise to get an earlier start these days. It just gives you one more set of ears, and more often than not, these jobs get filled before they are even widely known as being available.

    Don’t run away from a background in coaching: We are seeing fewer scouts who’ve been coaches over the past decade-plus. However, if you’re a scout who’s spent time on the field, I think the transition will be easier to the college game, where scouts do a lot more than just evaluating.

    Three Emerging Football Trends I Could See

    14 Friday Mar 2025

    Posted by in Media, NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

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    Between the NFL Combine, my reading of a book called The Price, and conversations with people across college and pro football over the last two weeks, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking.

    Here are three ideas that are coalescing in my head these days. I think they all could shift the direction of college and pro football over the next decade. Here goes . . . .

    Fundraising, not player evaluation, will be football-playing schools’ highest responsibility: This week, UNLV’s athletic director admitted he hired a head coach without knowing how he’s going to pay him (before walking things back once it set off an Internet firestorm). That’s shocking. We’re seeing lots of GMs being hired lately with backgrounds in NFL scouting, but with donor fatigue at all-time highs, schools better have a plan for raising money.

    The NFL will go from a partner of college football to a rival: Will the new enforcement rules begin to limit the money paid out to athletes for name, image and likeness? Will we see more collectives come under the roof of the school, like Colorado and UCF have done? I don’t know, and even if they do, I don’t know if that will curtail spending. Bottom line, college football is becoming more and more professional-looking, and you can’t deny the excellent quality of play. At some point, the dollars have to become limited, don’t they? Ultimately, college football teams don’t really need the NFL. Could college and pro football become contentious with each other? I don’t know. It’s possible.

    Scouting will continue to become centralized: This week, the Rams, who were voted winners of the Best Draft Award for their work last April, announced new roles and titles for a dozen scouting staffers. Their new lineup includes six (6!) senior personnel executives — this title wasn’t even being used across the NFL until maybe five years ago — and one (1!) area scout. Does this mean they’re sending out one guy to make school visits in all 50 states? Of course not. However, it’s undeniable that (a) they are doing things differently and (b) they are having great success. We also learned this week that the Jaguars (with a new head coach and GM with Rams roots) will not hold a local pro day at team HQ next month. That’s another departure from most teams, but not the Rams, who never have one. If Jacksonville starts having success, other teams will start copying The Rams Way when it comes to the draft. That’s going to be a significant shift.

    There’s a good reason to believe I’m crazy, and maybe none of these ideas will get traction. I really hope I’m wrong — maybe in five years, people will look at this post and laugh — but I fear I’m right. More discussion about the game is in today’s Friday Wrap. Register for it here.

    Here’s What I Think I Know About NIL with (Possible) Settlement Approval a Month Away

    07 Friday Mar 2025

    Posted by in NIL, Transfer portal

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    As of today, we are exactly a month from the expected (hoped-for?) approval of the House settlement which will determine, once and for all, how schools will proceed with name/image/likeness payments and management for college athletes. The question I’m grappling with is, just how much certainty does it provide?

    I spent last Friday in a room with about 300 people who are highly invested in the NIL space — college GMs (P4 and G5), top NIL agents and firms, the wealth managers that represent many of the players, thought leaders and others. My co-host (CJ Cavazos of CJ Recruiting and NIL) and I asked two separate panels of college GMs some tough questions on what’s ahead, and while it was helpful, we only had 90 minutes. We probably could have used at least another 90, but that wasn’t possible. We didn’t record the proceedings, but in case you missed it, here’s a taste of what took place.

    As I try to digest everything said and heard last week, there’s still a lot I don’t understand. I’m certainly not an attorney, and frankly, my interests apply only to football. With that said, here’s what I believe to be true regarding what’s going to happen in a month (pending approval April 7 by Judge Claudia Wilken).

    • The limit for revenue-sharing is $20.5 million. This money is independent of collectives and will be spent by the schools themselves.
    • The $20.5 million total represents an estimated 22 percent of what a garden variety football-playing school generates in revenue from its athletics program.
    • The lion’s share of the $20.5 million (77 percent, by most accounts) will go to football players. I’m struggling to find an exact percentage anywhere, but I don’t think anyone would be compelled to hold to that number anyway.
    • Teams have to generate their own $20.5 million; the money is not coming from the House settlement.
    • Even if they don’t have $20.5 million, they must dole out the money in the same ratio that everyone has agreed upon for revenue-sharing, that is, if they are participating in revenue-sharing. They are not obligated to do that. This is just a proposed way of spending the money. Most P4 schools seem willing to hold to that, at least initially, as a hedge against litigation.
    • Football teams will be held to 105-man rosters. These will be the only players allowed to participate in revenue-sharing.
    • Title IX applies to scholarships, but it does not apply to NIL money. Yet. There’s litigation in the pipeline that might change that.
    • Collectives are not governed by any of this. A school’s collective can raise and spend whatever it wants to.
    • There is no governing body that will call balls and strikes. In a perfect world, the NCAA would do this, but it does not appear to have that capability, and no one else does, either. Basically, it’s an honor system, and will rely on peer pressure from other schools to comply.
    • Through a clearinghouse, Deloitte will establish market value for any NIL deal over $600, and if judged to be out of whack, Deloitte will say so. There’s an arbitration process, and a player could lose eligibility if he signs a deal that’s judged to be not fair market value, but this seems ripe for litigation, as well. Furthermore, it seems unclear, at least to me, what compels a player, agent or team to send a completed NIL deal in to the clearinghouse.
    • There is no standard contract for NIL payments to players (akin to the wage scale the NFL has adopted based on accrued seasons, etc.) because there is no collective bargaining agreement. As such, there is no reason a team couldn’t commit all or most of its football allotment to one player, technically (again, the team and player might face punishment from Deloitte/the NCAA, but then again, maybe not). It also means terms of a contract can be ripped up at any time and rewritten if both parties (school and player) agree.
    • Presuming it’s approved by Judge Wilken, this will all become “the law” on July 1, when the 2025-26 academic year begins across the land.

    More on these observations and what they all mean are in today’s Friday Wrap, which comes out at 7:30 p.m. EST today. I hope you’ll check it out. Not registered yet? Sign up here.

    December 2024 Portal Window: Reactions

    27 Friday Dec 2024

    Posted by in Agents, NIL, Transfer portal, Uncategorized

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Earlier this week, an old friend in player representation made an offhand comment about representing a player in the transfer portal. This is an agent who’s one of the top handful of contract negotiators in the game, but who’s become disillusioned by the cost of repping today’s players. It was refreshing to hear that he had entered NIL representation, because he’s been renewed. The story he told me sounded like a win for all involved — team, player and agent — and I don’t often get to hear such good news.

    Curious if there were other positive stories out there, I reached out to several friends on both side of the portal (player representation and personnel/recruiting) to get their takes on the December window. Here’s what I was told.

    DPP, G5 school: “There were a lot more players that entered (close to a few thousand in just the first day) and every one of them has an agent and is asking for a lot more money than in years past. It’s impossible to set a market and average price per player when average talented kids are getting offered more money than you think they’re worth. You also see certain schools like Oklahoma State going all in on NIL and portal when they weren’t before, I guess in an effort to save their jobs and bring back a winning culture.”

    DPP, another G5 school: “For us, it wasn’t too crazy. We had minimal interaction and impact from agents or advisors and we didn’t get into the bidding war type of deal. We did offer reasonable but moderate amounts of NIL money to guys we anticipate having good opportunities to start for us, but our top guys on our roster are and will continue to get the bulk of, and the highest amounts of, the NIL budget. . . With that said, from what I’ve seen and heard from the portal market is pretty rough. We have always had a problem in college football of handler/street agent types taking advantage of players, and it’s only worse now with the combination of the transfer portal and NIL. There is a significant need in college football for some type of regulations in the ‘agent’ world. It will take time, but there’s a very real need for that. We’ve heard of multiple situations of ‘agents’ gathering the potential market value for players if they entered the portal so that they can then go to the player and tell them how much money they can get them if they go into the portal. As we all know, it’s a broken system that we’re living in just hoping it can end up being rebuilt into something that resembles fair competition with less (or ideally no) corruption.”

    DPP, P4 school: “The overarching theme this cycle was a lot worse from the team standpoint than this time last year. Part of that is based on that there were fewer quality players that entered, and along with that, now that everyone has money, everyone costs a lot more. The players (are) getting way more, but from a team sense, there’s less quality. . . There are fewer good players in college football now because, when you look at the grand scheme of things, 2024 was the last year of Covid seniors. So this draft class had two-and-a-half senior classes in one. You had the high school class of 2021 that played four years without redshirting, the high school class of 2020 that played five years without redshirting, then the high school classes of 2018 and 2019 that had a redshirt plus Covid years. So, because of all that, there were so many seniors in college football with no eligibility and they’re all leaving (for the draft), so a lot of the other guys (remaining) haven’t played as much. There were fewer younger guys with meaningful stats. For the immediate time being . . . it’s gonna take some time to balance itself out (talent-wise) with younger players, but in the end, it will be relatively normal. We won’t see the kind of quality and depth that we saw in the 2023 class. With revenue sharing across college football, salaries have skyrocketed. We just won’t see the same depth that we’ve seen in the past.” 

    NIL agent with established, NFLPA-certified firm: “Seeing more and more players with representation. Not surprising that this is the direction it’s headed. Agents are still clowns for the most part. Even legitimate NFL agents just don’t know what they’re doing. Still hearing a ton of complaints about that from teams. Player talent was about the same. I think G5/FCS kids think more concretely about the portal as a part of their college career plan. Most of them want to ‘level up.’ There was definitely another infusion of money with revenue share kicking in. The middle class P4s that couldn’t raise collective money competitively got a huge boost. If anything, NIL is creating more parity, at least for now.”

    Top NIL agent, also with NFL certification: “From an agency perspective, I think it’s really important to highlight that there are some bigger NFL agencies that are taking NIL seriously and there are those that don’t. . . These (firms) are either hitting on the top guys, doing a ton of volume, or both. Seems like these were the names I heard from players on who had reached out. Last year, I was like one of the only shows in town. Now more medium-sized NFL agencies are getting involved in the portal. In high school, it’s more of the (top-five NFL firms) that are getting all of the top high school talent, mainly QB, skill, (pass rushers) and OT prospects. The point I want to make . . . is that if an NFL agency isn’t on the list, they are probably gonna get passed by in the next 3-5 (years). I know a lot of people are saying that players won’t stick that long, and to a degree they are correct, but I think if a player stays with his NIL guy for long enough, (the agency has) a better chance of landing them for the draft down the road.”

    We’ll have more on the portal in today’s Friday Wrap. Register here.