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Emerging sport · Athlete economics

NIL collectives can be community infrastructure or a grift. Here's how to tell.

Some collectives are quietly building the most useful athlete development infrastructure American college sport has ever had. Others are laundering recruiting money through a 501(c)(4). The two look identical from the outside until you ask the right four questions.

I run the NOVA Foundation, which works with college athletes navigating life after sport. That means I spend a lot of time around NIL collectives. The good ones are remarkable. The bad ones are a different sport — money flowing into recruiting decisions wearing the costume of athlete support.

Athletes signing collective deals deserve a framework for telling them apart. So do donors writing checks. Here's the one I use.

The four questions

Question 1: Where does the money go on the balance sheet besides athlete payouts? A real collective has a budget for career services, financial literacy programming, mental health support, brand-building education, alumni network operations, and administrative overhead. If 95%+ of every dollar raised flows directly out as athlete compensation, the collective is doing one thing: paying athletes. That's not infrastructure. That's a payroll service.

Question 2: Who is the athlete development lead and what's their background? A collective that takes athlete development seriously has hired someone whose job is athlete development. Not the booster who chairs the board. Not the executive director focused on fundraising. A separate professional, ideally with a background in player programs (NFLPA, NBPA, NWSLPA), career services, or sports psychology. If you can't name that person and look up their CV, the development claim is marketing.

Question 3: What happens for athletes who don't earn major NIL deals? At most schools, 20% of roster athletes get 80%+ of the NIL dollars. The 80% that don't earn meaningfully from the open market are the athletes who need the most support. A good collective designs programming that covers the whole roster — group education, mentorship, internships, network access — funded by the dollars that flow to the high-earners. A grift collective ignores the 80% and only does business with the 20%.

Question 4: Is there a post-eligibility support structure? The NIL window closes. Most athletes' careers end when their eligibility does. A collective that's genuinely athlete-centered builds alumni programming — career placement, ongoing network access, financial planning, mental health continuity. A pay-for-play collective ends the relationship the day eligibility ends and the athlete is on their own.

A collective that ends the relationship the day eligibility ends is not building anything. It's transacting.

What the House settlement changes

The 2024 House v. NCAA settlement approved direct revenue-sharing between schools and athletes — roughly $20.5 million per school per year initially, scaling up. This was the biggest structural change in college sport in fifty years and it changes the role of collectives, but not in the way most people think.

Revenue sharing creates a baseline compensation floor that flows through the institution. Collectives now have to add value beyond what the school is already paying. The collectives that are just pay-for-play are getting squeezed — the school's revenue share replaces what they used to provide. The collectives that built real athlete development infrastructure are becoming more valuable, not less, because they provide what the institution still doesn't.

You can predict which collectives will survive the next three years by applying the four questions above. The ones that pass the test are the ones that will exist in 2028. The ones that don't pass are absorbing capital that should be flowing through the institution directly.

What I'd take from this

For athletes considering a collective relationship: ask the four questions in your recruiting visit. Get specific answers. A good collective will be proud to answer; a bad one will deflect.

For donors writing collective checks: ask the same questions. Your dollars either build something durable or fund a recruiting arms race that will be regulated or competed away in a few years. The good collectives can show you their programming. The grift collectives will tell you about wins.

For athletic departments thinking about how they relate to their collectives: the institution-collective alignment question is going to define the next ten years of college sport. Schools that work with infrastructure-collectives will have stronger athlete outcomes, lower transfer rates, and better post-graduate placement. Schools that work with pay-for-play collectives will continue to win recruiting battles in the short term and lose athlete trust over the long term.

The NIL era is not going away. The structure of how athletes are supported through it is still being written. The collectives we recognize as infrastructure today will be the ones that shape the rest of it.