Category Archives: Transfer portal

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.

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.

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.

    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

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    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.

    Gauging the Progress of the NCAA’s Antitrust Litigation Settlement

    09 Friday Aug 2024

    Posted by in Agents, NIL, Transfer portal

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    There isn’t a lot of chatter about it in college and pro football circles — at least none that I’ve picked up — but big parts are moving into place that will determine the future and structure of college football. Late last month, we got a story that was pretty telling about what direction things are going, and until now, I really haven’t had a chance to give it a close look.

    This week, however, I did. The lawsuits involve antitrust actions against the NCAA (three of them, in fact, that were resolved collectively). Per the story, the resolution of these lawsuits “outline how past athletes will share the $2.78 billion in damages that the NCAA has agreed to pay, sets up a new system for revenue sharing and outlines new roster limits for a long list of college sports, among other items.” Obviously, $2.78 billion is a lot of money, but that only reflects the back pay previous athletes will receive. It’s just scratching the surface of what’s ahead.

    Anyway, no one seems to want to acknowledge what’s ahead and how it will change player representation, so I thought I’d try to comb through the story and draw my own conclusions. Here are a few passages and my comments.

    • “Schools will be permitted for the first time to pay their athletes directly via name, image and likeness (NIL) deals under the terms of the settlement. Each school could provide up to 22% of the average revenue that power conference schools generate from media rights, ticket sales and sponsorships — a sum that is expected to be between $20 million and $22 million per school when the settlement goes into effect at the start of the 2025-26 academic year.” — OK, but this seems like another effort to keep players from getting paid as university employees, which seems completely inevitable. If it is inevitable (and I believe it is), it’s almost stupid to wade through and try to figure out how the terms of this lawsuit will change things, because someone else will sue again soon and tear this agreement down. As for the numbers, $22 million seems a little conservative given that I’ve heard that many schools’ budgets are already north of that number for football only. With the money pouring into football programs, it seems like this number could soar higher quickly. If this is the case, and nothing is done to slow portal movement, the dollars are going to make things even crazier.
    • “Athletes would still be able to make money from NIL deals with third parties, but the NCAA said the settlement will allow them to install a more ‘robust and effective enforcement and oversight program’ to make sure those third-party deals are ‘legitimate NIL activity.'” — I think this is good, but I wonder if there will be real teeth in these oversight programs. More and more, the bigger agencies are signing up the top draft prospects years before they are draft-eligible just so they’ll be at the front of the line when it comes to signing an NFL contract. Sure, the top five percent are getting big national deals, but those are few and far between. 
    • “The NCAA plans to create a database of NIL deals to try to objectively assess whether arrangements between an athlete and a third party qualify as a legitimate endorsement deal.” — Great! But will the results be public? If not, who will have access? Schools? Agents? There’s not an NFLPA-comparable body that can regulate all this, though I presume the NCAA thinks of itself as such a body.  
    • “The settlement allows for the court to appoint a ‘special master’ to rule on any disputes about new rules related to player compensation. . . The two sides have not yet determined who will serve as the new enforcement entity or who will oversee the arbitration process of any future disputes.” — I don’t think this can work through civil litigation processes, which means it will have to be collectively bargained . . . which requires a union. 
    • “It is highly unlikely that football players — who generate the majority of revenue for most schools — will receive 50% of the money that the football team generates. Some of those benefits have to be shared equitably due to Title IX regulations. The settlement does not provide detailed instructions on how to apply Title IX to these new benefits, leaving some potentially tricky decisions up to each individual school.” — This is why this doesn’t seem tenable. Football teams will eventually not want to share revenues. If this isn’t settled promptly, and just left to the schools, it’s going to accelerate football’s pull away from this agreement.
    • “As part of the settlement, the NCAA agreed to remove any limits on the number of scholarships a school can provide to athletes. Previously, NCAA rules dictated a certain number of scholarships per sport. If the settlement is approved, there will instead be a limit on how many total players each team can have on its roster and each individual school will decide how many of those players it wants to put on scholarship.” — This is probably the NCAA trying to throw the bigger schools a bone, but I doubt it works. 

    At the end of the day, most agents just want to know what they’ll have to deal with. A nationwide NIL contract database would be huge if contract advisors have access to it. I think most would like to know if there’s going to be some kind of certification process, as well, with most NFL agents I know welcoming that. It’s becoming less necessary, however, as more and more NIL agents pursue NFL certification. They’re a growing part of our exam prep course every year.

    Anyway, I may have come across as negative during some of this, and I grant that it’s easy to deride people who are trying to do the virtually impossible, i.e., build a framework for the college game going forward. If the settlement is approved and this 10-year agreement is binding, it will bring some positives. However, it’s hard not to see the overwhelming power and potential of dollars the big football schools would be turning down to abide by this. I just feel like the major conferences will build their own league, and play by their own rules, sooner rather than later.

     

     

    2024 Spring Portal Window: Agents Respond

    17 Friday May 2024

    Posted by in NIL, Transfer portal

    ≈ 1 Comment

    Last week, we spoke to personnel directors at several schools to get their take on the spring portal window, and how it measured up to expectations as well as how it compared to December. This week, as promised, we are passing along what we got back from several agents who had players seeking transfers. Here are our takeaways.

    Talent was average.

    • “The spring window tends to be weaker, I’d say this one was particularly weak. (Players) are starting to understand how the portal works, and December is really the best time to go in for them.”
    • “You saw most high-end teams needing 1-2 positions, whereas in December, teams were hunting for a lot of best available players at numerous positions. April was more position-specific, based on team needs.”

    • “You’re not seeing a lot of tenured guys hit the portal as you did last spring or even in the December window. Teams are doing a much better job of roster management.”

    The money was not nearly as plentiful.

    • “I saw less of teams being desperate to sign lesser players.”
    • “I felt like more Tier 2 or 3 players were getting in expecting huge paydays based off of what they heard about the December portal, but not everyone was able to get that.
    • “I felt like things were slowing down a bit and teams were starting to settle on ranges for players. There appeared to be a bit more level-headedness when it came to the April portal or a better understanding of the market/what they could do specifically as a team.”
    • “This spring portal window was underwhelming to say the least. You’ve got guys like Josh Pate at 247 hyping this up to be the craziest portal window ever and it absolutely wasn’t.”
    • “A lot of big P4 schools are getting away from the bidding wars. (LSU head coach) Brian Kelly came out and said they aren’t going to overspend on players just because of a need.”

    Schools are getting better at all aspects of the portal.

    • “Teams and collectives are getting smarter with roster retention. Coaches are able to better evaluate who is a potential roster defector and collectives are putting language in their contracts that helps from players being tampered with before the portal window opens.”
    • “There’s still players that will slip through the cracks, but now it’s more of your second or third guy in the rotation at a position going to a school where he will be the No. 1 guy.”

    It’s not surprising that it’s becoming more of a buyer’s market as the portal era continues and the people writing the checks get smarter about how they allocate their dollars. The ball is in the court of agents who now must figure out how to leverage their players and identify the schools with the biggest budgets. We’ll continue to monitor the development of things.

    Five Thoughts About the Transfer Portal

    19 Friday Apr 2024

    Posted by in NIL, Scouts, Transfer portal

    ≈ Leave a comment

    Here are a few thoughts based on conversations I’ve had with people around the industry during the first week of the April transfer portal window.

    • This is the first time in my two decades-plus running ITL that college personnel staffers have approached me about meeting NFL agents. Personnel directors see what’s happening and they’re getting aggressive. I’m happy to oblige. Honestly, what’s taken so long? I played a (small) role in one agency hiring a portal expert just this month. I hope to do that more often. That agency is now recruiting some of the better players who’ve entered during the April window. It just makes sense that more and more firms will do this.
    • The portal is not so much about who’s in, especially this time of year, as who could be in. This week, I’ve personally spoken to a contract advisor who is shopping a highly touted player who’s not in the portal — yet. He’s had several conversations with schools.
    • We’re at the beginning of the end for collectives. Sure, they’ll still be around as a funding arm — at least for a while — but as far as being a central part of the decision-making process for a key transfer, I see that ending. Once the Tennessee and Virginia AGs successfully sued the NCAA, allowing players to negotiate deals to transfer, personnel directors I’ve spoken to are far more aggressive about wanting to go directly to players (and/or their representatives) to talk numbers. It’s just a matter of figuring out how to monetize things on a grander scale to make up for the donor fatigue.
    • The latest rule change means most players should be looked at as being on one-year deals at all times. There are no longer any barriers (outside of academic eligibility) to player movement. 
    • I do not see a mass buildup of personnel departments involving former NFL scouts: The portal chase is not so much a draft as it is a free agent pursuit. The “haves” are full of money to sign players that might help them. For the most part, the only limit on the number of players they sign is their budgets (not usually a major consideration) and their roster openings. On top of this, there have never been more young, aspiring scouts willing to work for free in exchange for a shot at their big break. Maybe populating a scouting staff will be the next arms race in college football, but I think most teams will pump that money into their NIL budgets rather than into splashy former NFL scouts and executives. Time will tell.

    There’s plenty more to discuss regarding the transfer portal, and we’ll be chopping it up in the Friday Wrap, which comes out at 7:30 p.m. Register for it here.