Where NIL Income Stands After One Month

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Hey Friends,

With new rules regarding the ability for college student-athletes to profit off their name, image, and likeness (NIL) going into effect last month, we saw an avalanche of deals immediately flood the market.

Fresno State twin basketball players Haley & Hanna Cavinder announced a six-figure endorsement deal with Boost Mobile in Times Square. At the same time, University of Miami players D'Eriq King & Bubba Bolden each signed a $20,000 deal with College Hunks, a moving company headquartered in Florida.

Those deals both took place on day one, but now that we’ve officially reached one month since the NIL rules were put in place, we finally have a significant amount of data to analyze.

College sports and recruiting publication On3 released a report over the weekend that analyzed NIL transactions on the INFLCR platform. An Alabama-based company, INFLCR provides hundreds of athletic departments with compliance software to monitor athlete NIL transactions and report them to the NCAA & IRS to ensure they comply with rules.

In total, INFLCR works with more than 100,000 athletes across the country and provided some interesting data to level-set where the NIL market currently sits after one month.

• There have been 1,361 NIL transactions on the INFLCR platform.

• Those deals represent involvement from roughly 1% of their registered users.

• Over $1.25 million has been earned by athletes — deals range from $0 in cash value to the low six figures — and the average deal is worth $923 (pre-tax).

• Slightly over 50% of all transactions have been reported by athletes playing sports outside of football or men’s and women’s basketball.

• About 34% of all deals have been done by football players, while 13% were women’s or men’s basketball players.

• About 10% of transitions were done by athletes in lacrosse, swimming, and diving, with the most common transaction being summer camps & lessons.

• Roughly 20% of all transactions were from female athletes, and 12% were from non-Power 5 schools.

To be fair, it’s important to remember that INFLCR isn’t the only player in this space. Other companies like Opendorse have large data sets that would need to be analyzed also. But directionally, these percentages provide a good picture of how the NIL space is evolving and where we might see it trend in the future.

My take? It’s pretty much where we should’ve expected. Of course, the six-figure endorsement deals make all the noise, but with just ~1% of active athletes on the INFLCR platform registering deals so far, it’s clearly been slow.

But that doesn’t mean the NIL critics are correct. Not only will these numbers ramp up when college football and basketball season are in full swing — the only two NCAA sports that generate billions of dollars in revenue — but with more than 50% of all transactions coming from athletes outside of football or men’s and women’s basketball, payments have been much more evenly distributed than many might have previously believed.

Nick Saban made headlines when he mentioned that Alabama quarterback Bryce Young, who hasn’t played a game yet, was already close to “seven-figures” in NIL income, and we can argue whether that’s actually true or just a recruiting technique, but regardless, that’s the exception rather than the rule.

I’m more focused on the hundreds (soon to be thousands) of college student-athletes competing in non-traditional sports — think lacrosse, swimming, diving, gymnastics, softball, golf, and cross country — that are now earning income through lessons, camps, and more.

For context, with 10% of the 1,361 INFLCR deals earned by athletes in lacrosse, swimming, and diving, that means that more than 130 college student-athletes earned roughly $1,000 last month, or better yet, are on pace to earn $12,000 (pre-tax!) this year.

Given we were provided the average and not the median, these figures are simply directional. Still, you get the point — $1,000 per month of income for any college student-athlete that doesn’t already come from money is a massive win.

Ultimately, it’s going to take some time to see how these deals evolve. I imagine we’ll start to see some bigger outliers and a couple of seven-figure endorsement deals throughout the fall. But regardless of the actual dollar amounts, it’s nice to finally see student-athletes being compensated for the use of their name, image, and likeness.

Have a great day, and we’ll talk tomorrow.

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