What Junior College Student-Athletes Need to Know About NIL Deals Before Playing Division I Sports

What You Need to Know About NIL Deals Before Playing Division I Sports

If you’re a junior college student-athlete planning to play sports at a Division I school, you must comply with the rules around third-party Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals. This includes being prepared to disclose all NIL deals worth $600 or more to the College Sports Commission upon enrollment at a Division I institution. Failure to comply with these rules could result in you being deemed ineligible to compete in Division I sports.

What is an NIL deal?

An NIL deal is any agreement where you get paid (money, products, or services) for allowing a company, brand, or person to use your name, image, or likeness, such as posting about a brand on social media, appearing at an event or promoting a company’s products or services.

What NIL Deals are Allowed?

Any NIL deal for which you received payment since July 1, 2025 or when you enrolled at a two-year college, whichever is later, must be reported, and if the deal involves a person or company associated with the Division I college you eventually decide to attend, the deal must be made with the purpose of using your NIL for a valid business purpose and must not exceed a reasonable range of compensation.

Allowed

Deals with entities and/or individuals not associated with your eventual school; and deals with entities and/or individuals associated with your eventual school that satisfy all of the following criteria:

Pay you for use of your name, image, or likeness (like doing ads, social media posts, or appearances)

Have a valid business purpose—meaning you’re promoting a real product, service, or event that is offered to the public for profit

Pay you similarly to what others with your level of fame or influence are paid for similar deals

You can use an agent or marketing professional to help with your NIL deals.

Not Allowed

Deals with entities and/or individuals associated with your eventual school where:

You’re paid but not required to do anything to promote a product, service or event

You’re paid and the company says they’ll use your name, image, or likeness eventually with no defined plans to do so

You’re paid to play your sport at a certain school (“pay-for-play”)

The amount you’re being paid isn’t within a range of what people in similar situations would get paid

What to Report:

You’ll be required to report any third-party NIL deal worth $600 or more with payments made from the start of your junior year of high school or since July 1, 2025—whichever was later.

If you have several smaller deals with the same company or person that add up to $600 or more, you must report those too.

When to Report:

You must report your NIL deals either:

Within 14 days after you start full-time classes at your new school, or
Before your first game as a Division I student-athlete—whichever comes first

How to Report:

When you register and get started at your new school, you’ll get set up to enter your deals into NIL Go, the online platform the College Sports Commission uses to evaluate compliance with the rules.

Why Does it Matter?

Complying with the NIL rules is required to be eligible to play Division I college sports. Not following these rules could put your eligibility at risk. If an issue arises with an NIL deal, your school and the College Sports Commission will try to help you address it to avoid any eligibility consequences.

What Do I Need To Do Now?

Comply with the rules as outlined above and keep detailed records of all NIL deals you enter into. Once you get to a four-year Division I institution, you’ll be required to report all deals with payments dating back to the start of your enrollment in a two-year college or July 1, 2025, whichever was later, and those deals will need to be cleared in order to be eligible to play.

FAQ’s

NCAA rules prohibiting pay-for-play have always been in effect.

NIL rules provide that student-athletes must report any NIL deals with payments made starting from when the student-athlete enrolled at a two-year college or July 1, 2025 – whichever was later. It is important to note that at this time student-athletes are not able to access the system (NIL Go) to report these deals until they’ve enrolled at their Division I institution. It is recommended that student-athletes keep detailed records of all NIL deals they enter into with payments dating back to when they enrolled at a two-year college.

At present, student-athletes are not able to access the system (NIL Go) to report NIL deals until they’ve enrolled at their Division I Institution. The College Sports Commission is exploring options that would allow for earlier reporting of deals, but deal analysis often cannot be completed until the student-athlete’s Division I institution is known.

Once a student-athlete enrolls at their Division I institution, the school’s compliance staff will provide robust educational materials on how to report pertinent NIL deals into the NIL Go platform.

Range of Compensation (RoC) is a framework for determining if a student-athlete’s third-party NIL compensation is commensurate with compensation paid to similarly situated individuals with comparable NIL value. The RoC is a deal level calculation that is intended to capture a student-athlete’s unique NIL value based upon multiple factors, including but not limited to:

The deal’s performance obligations.
The student-athlete’s athletic performance and social media reach.
The local market and the market reach of the student-athlete’s institution and program.

The RoC will also be informed by external benchmarks. If a student-athlete’s payment matches what’s standard for others in their similar situation, it’s considered within the RoC.

If a student-athlete was party to a deal that is not allowed under the rules, the student-athlete’s eligibility could be at risk. Student-athletes will be required to work with their school and the College Sports Commission to cancel or pay back the deal in order to avoid any eligibility consequences.

Alternatively, if an NIL deal is not cleared, within 14 days after notice of the decision, the student-athlete may appeal the decision to a neutral arbitrator.

Arbitration Process