The Truth About NIL What Every Athlete & Parent Needs to Know

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3:47with LPL Financial we provide the services to help push you forward when it comes to your finances your business your future the only question should be what if you could paid advertisement Anna Kendrick is not a client of LPL Financial LLC and receives compensation to promote LPL investing involves risk including potential loss of principal LPL Financial LLC member FINRA SIPC a lot of times people think NIL and they're thinking of like the most high level player in the world and somebody that's getting five million dollars but explain how players are getting NIL deals that you've never heard of.

4:14Players that like you said a fourth round draft pick that's getting a million dollars or players getting thirty thousand dollars from a mid-major or a low major D1. Like set that level of expectation because I think that that's something that a lot of people could relate to and they might not be aware that you can still get money in the NIL world even if you're not a household name. And like I said all you guys can chime in on that. Okay, you want me to start? Tiny, you want to start? Yeah, I was just talking about that the other day. There's a kid at Radford University that's getting$700 ,000.

4:53So, and these are facts. So, what I say to the youth is that, and parents, it was a time when people used to say, don't put your eggs in one basket. sports matters. It matters a lot. It's taking kids from high school to become entrepreneurs. We don't need the NBA anymore, which is the organization. We need parents to really focus on that sports can make a huge difference. I'm not saying it's the all and be all, but because of my life has been you know help with sports i think that's that's very important so like he was saying you don't have to be the mcdowell american you don't have to be the starting five on your high school team you stay with it and you can you could benefit from nil which is you know which is excellent there's nil which is a real nil which is what it was originally made for where you can actually go out there and get a brand endorsement deal where you promote a brand or create a partnership with a brand and you get paid for that.

6:08The number two way is from collectives. Colleges now have created since this inception, they created collectives which are not run by the school at first. It was run by boosters, which is alumni, and they came in and they set up partnerships for you. And it was kind of hidden pay for play but that was the way they disguised it in marketing brands the third way now which came into play july 1st through congress um what is called revenue share and now schools can pay you directly from their funds and that for the most part is is pay for play so those those are the three ways you can get paid um and with the revenue share schools can play up to 20 22 million dollars they have a budget they're allowed to use up to 22 million dollars for college rep share and that's for their whole budget for all their teams um for the most part of that football is going to get the biggest part if they have football every school has a different percentage but it has to be broken down and that's the way those are the three ways they can pay a college athlete yeah and if football is going to get the most because football is making the most money um when you talk about rev share but i guess to answer your question the um kids can make significant amount of money in college and it's not just a high d1 level the power five level you know you got kids at mid-major level making a hundred thousand two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year that's more than some of these kids families make so college sports is actually a serious serious business and it's very important that these kids get the right advice and have the right team around them I did a deal for a kid making five hundred thousand dollars who might not even start at college if you think if you could do that for four or five years you would have made more money than some kids parents would have made in a lifetime so you can't just you know gloss over this what's happening what's going on it's serious business and it's serious money so you are a lawyer you draw up contracts and you actually just educate me backstage all you guys as far as NIL deals they're not all the same I thought it was like a standard like a scholarship right where you sign the scholarship papers that all the scholarship papers are the same so you You're negotiating NIL deals, right?

8:38So what's some things to look out for and what's some things to add, what's some clauses, like what's some things to be aware of? Greg, you can answer that as well. Well, I'll start off by saying this. The colleges now are going to a pro model. It's pro sports. If you Google and look what's going on, all these schools starting at the top, they're hiring people from pro teams, basketball and football. Most power five schools now, football and basketball, I say about 80 % of them have what you call a general manager. We're supposed to have Daniel Abrams, which is his position at Boston College basketball.

9:15He couldn't make it today. But they hire those guys, and some of these schools also have cap guys, which is the salary cap. So their jobs between those two guys, they manage the roster, roster construction, and they manage the portal acquisitions, and they talk with the agents. So when you're hiring people to talk with agents, their job is to do school-friendly deals to make sure they protect that money for the school. Same way if you're with the New York Jets, their job is to make sure that they benefit from the contract. So when you have that and you may have somebody that's negotiating for you that does not have the experience of someone like a lawyer or an agent, now you're putting yourself at a disadvantage.

10:03So I do NFL contracts. We deal with a collective bargain agreement. And most of those contracts, the template is the same. One thing that we're going to negotiate is, of course, the amount of money and some of the language. When you're dealing with a college, you're dealing with over 300-something different Division I schools. I haven't seen the same contract yet. Every contract's different. Every contract's different. So their job is to protect the money for the University of Maryland. So trust me, when they have somebody come in and they might say, oh, it's the dad that they realize the dad has no experience in negotiating and all that, they will love they love that they will try to take advantage of you yeah especially if they try to get the kid i want to one point that you made earlier so a lot of kids you know they'll have their friend or a family member representing them it's not necessarily that they have the bad intention it's just they don't have the the experience or the knowledge or the acumen to make sure that you're doing what's in the best interest of the athlete the student athlete So there's a lot of different things that could be in agreement with the university.

11:21How the money is paid out, which can be tricky. A kid could say, college coach say, hey, you come to my school, I'm going to pay you$250 ,000 to play. There could be provisions in there if the kid plays that year, you know, if he's not redshirted. It could be how the money is broken down. Some schools will pay it monthly. Some schools will try to back end the money so that if the kid enters the portal then the payment stopped right away. I mean some of this is technical but that's why you should get a lawyer to review the agreement because there could be different provisions in there or conditions in there that could prevent the kid from actually getting the money or all the money that the kid signed up to go to that university for.

12:04I'm gonna add to that. So let's go down a little level. Let's go down before you get to that level. I'm on a high school level and recently I've seen contracts of kids with NIO deals that are still in high school so for all you guys that are still in high school you have a chance to benefit but it's tricky and it's dangerous what I'm trying to say is this there's a lot of people what I call the BAC the bad advice crew they will forward you your NIO deal say you're the top sophomore in the country They'll give you$100 ,000. They'll get it back from the colleges. So you're not really, ain't no money coming out your pocket, ain't no money coming out their pocket, but now they got you tied down.

12:54And now you gotta follow what they asked you to do because you're getting paid. That's on our level. So this is serious business. Serious business, and we gotta watch out. We gotta watch out youth, but we gotta watch out communities. So, Tiny, I want to follow up with you as far as on the high school level. We have another legendary high school coach in here too, Coach Cimino. Appreciate him coming. What's your advice for young people as far as how they're managing their brands on social media? Some of the things that you're seeing currently, you coached the Nike Elite Team, this is where I spoke to the guys when you were there.

13:30So like what are you seeing from the the grassroots level right now in 2025 that can either be helpful or harmful for young people? Yeah, that's that's that's deep. I went to this school back in the 90s and we didn't have the social media that we had now. So it was totally different. But what I am seeing is two things. You know, I believe social media is probably, you know, one of the worst things and the best thing that happened to us as a community. the kids are becoming a little bit more professional. They are becoming entrepreneurs, but they take the integrity out of the game. It's impossible for you to make every shot, to play good all the time.

14:18So that's not the reality of it. So the social media part is really, I believe, taking the integrity out of the game. But I also feel that the high school coaches It's got to be more of just being the X and O guy. Quick one before you jump back in. You're listening for ways to help teams move faster, make sharper decisions, and turn scattered context into work they can use. ChatGPT for Business can help. ChatGPT for Business gives teams a shared workspace with admin controls, permissions, and access to work and codecs in ChatGPT. This means your business can move from question to answer and code to rollout quicker.

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19:41Car insurance renews on autopilot, the rates creep up, and nobody tells you. That's what Insurify fixes. In about two minutes, completely free, you can see rates from more than 120 top insurance companies. And if there's nothing better today, they keep watching and notify you when there's a better rate. So go to Insurify.com. That's I-N-S-U-R-I-F-Y.com. Insurify.com. You really got to get involved because social media do matters. And if you're a coach that don't want to get involved with the social media, you're not really trying to help the kid go to the next level or phases. So it's a give and take.

20:20And I think, you know, I go back to the parents. I go back to the mentors, the high school coaches, the grassroots people. it's got to be a collective teamwork. You know, it's called grassroots for a reason. That's not about the high school coach. It's about the whole community understanding that there's a chance of us, you know, benefiting. So, Matt, let me ask you. As far as I'm a good player in high school, right? I'm averaging 17 points, and I'm getting recruited by a bunch of mid-major schools, right? Now, do I go to an agent like Greg? Do I go to a lawyer like yourself? Do I go to both? Like, who do I contact first?

21:12That's a good, good question, and we could probably go spin around for this. So hopefully as a high school athlete, I'm doing well in high school, hopefully I'm affiliated with a good grassroots mentor coach organization that's going to help guide me that has experienced God and other players those are questions that parents we should ask and reason why I could jump into it because I have a kid that's going through this now too you want to see the organizations or the school that your kid is playing for participating in what's their history what's their track record what other kids have they successfully helped matriculate through college or you know everybody's not gonna make it to the league so you know what you know so those are the things that I look for like what what kids went through that program but for me I think a lawyer I mean I'm biased but I think a lawyer is a critical part of the team for any family making any decisions because once contracts are involved you need to make sure somebody's going to fully advise you and explain though you know every provision that's in there and don't take things for granted.

22:18You know, the agent is more probably more so important in college basketball than ever before. Somebody like a Greg, because now kids are entering the portal after one year, going to another school to get more money. As a lawyer, I'm not in that world every day to know what college is looking for, a point guard or a running back or a quarterback. An agent is probably way more versed at helping a kid just navigate his way through college before you even get to the pros. Because now you've got the portal that's helping kids go to school and get paid more money than what they did when they came out of high school.

22:54But I think it's a whole collective of team. You know, the person they trust from the grassroots, the lawyer that's going to advise you and the family and the parents, the agent that you can trust. And it's kind of like a checks and balances. You know, you don't want the agent putting something in front of you that you don't understand either. You know, that's my two cents. Greg, talk about the portal because we're seeing kids that's transferring every year. And it's even crazier than NBA or NFL because at least you have to stay with your team for a certain amount of years unless you get traded.

23:26But this is like everybody in the NBA has a one-year contract. That's how crazy it would be, right? So you have hundreds of thousands of kids that's transferring every single year, even if it's not a bad situation just because they can get more money. So how do you advise players in the portal as far as making the right decision and what's your process as far as making sure you're in tune with all of the general managers to see what's going on in the world? Good question. Every situation is different. um some kids you you don't want to move you you may think the grass is greener on the other side brown grass might be brown grass if you're moving what you also got to take into account is and also they're already trying to review that and switch that rule not switch it but they're trying to go back to the one one time transfer rule in the portal which i think makes a lot of sense you got a lot of these guys you know you might be getting 200 000 from one school you want to jump into the portal and try to get 250.

24:26You got some guys now on average, you're going to have kids that have four schools on their resume. Where are you going back for homecoming? I mean, that's number one. Number two, all these credits aren't transferring. Coach from this school is going to have you eligible to play for those. However, when you go across the bridge and you try to get that business degree, hey, some of those credits, if you're at Morgan and you're coming from a lower school like Howard, I'm just messing with my man right here, and your credits might not transfer over. But now you get out of there in four years, you think you're graduating, but you're not.

25:10Now you look, you probably got another year and a half, another three semesters. So that's one thing I'm trying to tell the kids. I would never try to advise a kid to move just for some money, unless maybe it's some life-changing money, or it's a situation where you're a quarterback and this system's not working for you, but, you know, you look like you have pro potential, and I'm telling you to go in this offense. They want you, and I know what they got there, and I know where you will be on the depth chart. I think that's the advantage of going with, that's the difference in sometimes going with an agent versus a lawyer.

25:44You know what the Lamar Jackson's on is, right? the athlete that says, I don't need an agent, I'm going to have my mom represent me because I'm going to save the 5 % that I'm going to pay the agent, and I'm going to do it that way. Jalen Brown, too. Yeah, okay, so it wasn't 5%. He was saving 3%, but let this go viral. He did not do the contract, all right? Mark Levin from the NFLPA did the contract. I mean, she did not do the contract. She's not a certified agent. Teams in the NFL cannot negotiate with anybody unless they're a certified agent. So that's number one. And I'm not knocking him, but he played well enough to establish himself to say, listen, I'm just going to have somebody from the PA help me with this contract.

26:26They are not up to doing that for 1 ,500 players or whatever amount of players in the NFL. So if you're elite like that, then that's fine. You can do that. The average guy cannot do that. I wouldn't recommend it for them, going into free agency and trying to find out which of these 32 teams is going to pay him the most and better fit him. If you're not certified and if you're representing yourself, you know what they say, you represent yourself as a lawyer, you've got to fool for a client. I would just add to that, just that there's so many examples, and this is because I don't want to like start bad-mouthing athletes.

27:03There's so many examples of athletes that have that could have benefited from having an agent or a better agent like that have made moves that have cost them millions and millions of dollars. I think the value of the agent comes from is somebody that knows the business, knows the landscape that can help you navigate. Because, yeah, the NFL has boilerplate. They have a collective bargaining agreement. NBA has a collective bargaining agreement. There's only so much money you're going to make depending on where you're drafted, what your position is, what your level is. That part is fair. So from an athlete saying it's already determined what I'm going to make, I get that.

27:43But what about when it's time to get traded or free agency and moving around? You can't pay for the value of an agent that has relationships and connections to talk to owners and managers and help you navigate that. And now that's trickling down into college and even into high school. So that's the value to me. And like, for example, in the NFL, we was back there and Tani saw me looking at my phone. He's like, we missed some games. But what I mainly do on a Sunday, I'm looking at stats. But the other main thing I'm looking at, unfortunately, is the injury report. Because if a player gets injured, now I have to manage them through that situation.

28:26I had a cornerback I represent on the Arizona Cardinals just right now. Last week he got hurt. He got back in the locker room. I called the GM, and they said it looking like the ACL. All right, well, as soon as you got to get the MRI, send it to me. I'm sending it to what is called a second opinion that's not affiliated with the team. Send it down to a second opinion. Turns out it's a grade three MCL, only eight weeks, where the team was automatically assuming he was going to be out for the season. So that's not something you can do if you're representing yourself. So managing the athlete is more than just negotiating a contract.

29:02If he's unhappy, he's talking to the team and the personnel. Can we move him? Should we move him? What is really going on? If he's fine, I got to go and do an appeal on Tuesdays. I got to sit on the phone and do an appeal. He was fined for having the wrong color socks in the NFL. That's something you cannot do. I don't think you can do if you're a plumber or HVC, if you're doing something else, not knocking those professions. But that's what we get paid to do is managing the athlete. So it's more than just negotiating the contract. After the athletes stop playing, what are the, I guess, best prospects to get them seeing themselves as a brand and how they can build intellectual property and have longevity in their name, image, and likeness.