Category Archives: Transfer portal

A Few Thoughts on How We Can Improve Our Combine Events

06 Friday Mar 2026

Posted by in Agents, College personnel, ITL, Media, NIL, Transfer portal

≈ Leave a comment

Forgive me if this is a little self-indulgent for a couple of events that have already taken place. However, I’ve spent the last week thinking about how we could make our two Indianapolis events last week, the 2026 Ellison Kibler at Merrill Lynch ITL Combine Seminar and the 2026 Dropback ITL Symposium, even bigger in 2027. Here’s what I’ve come up so far.

More space: We were smart enough to increase our space for Friday’s symposium — and thank the Lord that we did, because we had a packed house — and increased our space for Wednesday. However, we probably need to expand our space even further for both events. Hopefully we can return to the first floor while meeting our needs, size-wise.

More imaging: We improved our social media game since last year, but let’s face it: we had nowhere to go but up. I’ve had a lot of the participants from Wednesday and Friday seeking photos of themselves from the events. I get it. When you work in the shadows, you have to find a way to let others learn who you are (or, at least, what you look like). We’ve done a good job with photos for the seminar, but not always got the pictures out. Friday, our photography was minimal. We’ll do better on both counts next year, and we’ll get shots out to people from Wednesday sooner this year.

Registration: I think we have to cut off signups earlier. We also have to level up our registration process. We’ll be giving this more thought before next year. Several people got into the symposium late despite registering days, even weeks before the event. That’s not fair to them.

Roundtables: Panelists (agents and GMs) had a really difficult job. We posed some difficult questions (they’re in this email in case you were wondering), and it’s not easy to respond when there are 400 people in the room. Some of the feedback I got was that they might be more comfortable sitting at tables with only a few people from the community. I’ve seen this done at previous symposiums, and it came together really well. However, they didn’t have as many people as we had, and it requires signups well in advance so you can kinda plot things out. We had a significant amount of walkup registration and that will probably continue next year with schedules in Indianapolis so volatile. I’m not sure if we can pull this off. But maybe we’ll try.

Promotion: I devoted three newsletters and 3-4 podcasts to promoting our symposium; I also put a ribbon on our website with all the details. Still, we had members of some of the top agencies who expressed disappointment that they didn’t know we were having it. I’ll admit I focused my personal texts, emails and DMs on college GMs and directors, hoping that agencies would participate if we had enough members of the college personnel community. Next year, I’ll be more aggressive about reaching out, personally, to people who have attended in the past.

If you were there, and you have ideas, I’d love to hear what you’ve got. I’m sure there are things I’m missing. I want to make both our events the place the football community comes to share best practices and meet key people. I won’t stop trying to improve both. DM me on Twitter at @insidetheleague.

More Thoughts on Friday’s Symposium and Where We Are

01 Sunday Mar 2026

Posted by in College personnel, NIL, Transfer portal

≈ Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking about our event Friday, the 2026 Dropback ITL Symposium, which took place Friday morning in the Indiana Convention Center before about 400 members of the college personnel community. We had 48 FBS schools represented, including 37 P4 schools and 20 GMs. Anyway, our two panels (three GMs, three NIL agents each) weighed in on 20 questions posed by Dropback founder Luke Bogus and myself over almost two hours on the second floor of the convention center.

I already posted a few takeaways in our Friday Wrap, but I had a few more today. First let’s get the cliches out of the way.

  • No one wants to take NIL payments away from players, no one is saying players shouldn’t be compensated for their images, etc.
  • Everyone is willing to let things be decided on the field, and no one is asking for mercy.
  • Everyone accepts that life isn’t fair.

With that said, there were a few recurring themes:

  • The January portal was a win, simply because it was one window instead of one in December and one in the spring. The timing is still tricky, but I don’t think there was a lot of pushback. If there was any, it was that there’s no certainty that this is the policy going forward. No one in a position of authority has declared the January window “the way” going forward.
  • The feeling on the panel was that money should go to veteran players. I mentioned this in the Friday Wrap, but Iowa GM Tyler Barnes raised the point that there should be some kind of cap on pay for high school players. Unknown players don’t have a lot of name recognition anyway, to say nothing of the limited snaps they usually play. We’ve seen the NFL basically do the same thing in the 2011 CBA. Unfortunately, this is probably wish casting as it would take federal legislation.
  • There’s clearly a lot of mystery about who represents which players; it’s so bad that one GM said he relies on journalists to tell him who represents whom. The problem here is that there’s nothing comparable to a Standard Representation Agreement (SRA), the document that the NFLPA requires players to sign when they agree to representation. Again, short of some kind of federal intervention or an opt-in to some governing body, that’s impossible.
  • With no rules, college officials and agents are left to rely on their own senses of honor; the value of relationships was mentioned so many times I lost count. However, as we know, morality is subjective, and honest people sometimes disagree. I raised the idea of some kind of code of conduct that could be accepted across the industry, but no one seemed to think that would make a difference. Unfortunately, the panelists are probably right.
  • You can argue about the makeup and effectiveness of the College Sports Commission (CSC), which is supposed to call balls and strikes on NIL deals, but you can’t argue that they’ve communicated effectively with schools. No one on either panel said he’d heard a word from the CSC. No one seemed to know much about what the CSC was doing, and given the role the CSC is supposed to play, that’s a concern. I hope someone at the CSC reads this. People in NCAA personnel offices would love to hear from them.
  • Unfortunately, for the second straight year, there was little to no optimism that tampering could be curbed, much less stopped. It’s admirable that the NCAA is trying to do something about it, but the panelists just shrugged their shoulders, figuratively, at these efforts. Even in the agent world, which is governed by the NFLPA, there’s almost no way to stop this. The player who benefits from such activity is never going to turn in his benefactor.
  • I was happy with the candor and honesty shown, but let’s be honest — when you’re giving opinions on touchy issues before a room of 400 people, it’s natural to edit yourself. The feedback is that people would be more open to talk in a roundtable situation, maybe 12 people talking about the issues. I’d like to think there’s someone out there that could provide such a forum, but who knows? Maybe I’m the one who should.

Just more stuff to think about. I think the problems facing the game may not be as overwhelming as some claim, but it’s not perfect. I hope ITL can be part of any solutions.

Here’s Why You Should Attend Our Combine Events

20 Friday Feb 2026

Posted by in Getting started, Scouts, Transfer portal

≈ Leave a comment

The 2026 NFL Combine is next week. If you read this blog regularly, you know I encourage you to take chances if you want to work in football. Well, if you aren’t going to Indianapolis next week, and you want to be a scout, coach or agent, you’re making a mistake if you don’t go.

Why? Think about this.

If you want to accomplish your goals, you must seize opportunities. I know that travel, hotels, food, etc., cost money. But there’s more than just a financial risk you’re taking if you don’t go — there’s also an opportunity risk. You don’t know who you’ll meet if you go. But you know that if you don’t go, you definitely won’t meet anyone.

It’s a people business. To succeed in this business, you must be a hard worker, of course. However, if you don’t get the chance to work for anyone, it doesn’t matter. Every NFL head coach has been on a bad team at some point, but he got another opportunity in the game because of the people he’s worked with before. If you don’t know many people in the game, there’s only one way to change that.

The Combine offers the best chance to meet people. As we’ve discussed before in this space, we’re seeing a change in philosophy by NFL teams toward all-star games. At the same time, access at the biggest game of them all (the Senior Bowl) has been reduced significantly. It’s true that there are fewer NFL people that go to Indianapolis than there used to be, but there will still be droves of scouts, coaches, league officials, agents, trainers and others who could be really helpful in getting your big break.

We provide two shots at improving your chances. I’m sorry if this comes across as bragging, but I’d argue that the Combine is a better place to network than ever because of our seminar (Wednesday night) and symposium (Friday morning). For $100 (or for no money if you already work for an FBS team), you can associate with literally hundreds of NFL scouts (Wednesday) and NCAA personnel (Friday) in a relaxed, collegial atmosphere. All the details for the weekend are in last week’s Friday Wrap.

Still not sold? Read today’s Friday Wrap (register here), in which we’ll discuss the panelists, review topics, answer frequent questions, list the awards, and provide other details that may make it sexy enough for you to be at one or both of them. Remember:

  • 2026 Ellison Kibler at Merrill Lynch ITL Seminar: Weds, Feb. 25, 530 pm. Room 205, Indiana Convention Center. No cost, no registration.
  • 2026 Dropback ITL Symposium: Friday, Feb. 27, 830 am. Room 205, Indiana Convention Center. Register here. Free to FBS personnel; all others $100.

Hope to see you there.

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

≈ Leave a comment

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.

Points of Interest Following Conversations with Multiple College Personnel Staffers

31 Friday Oct 2025

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

≈ Leave a comment

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.

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

≈ Leave a comment

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.

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

    21 Friday Mar 2025

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

    ≈ Leave a comment

    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

    ≈ Leave a comment

    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

    ≈ Leave a comment

    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.