Picture this conversation. A college athlete finishes eligibility having earned six figures or more through NIL deals and revenue sharing. He or she has been performing at a high level, managing his or her own brand and carrying professional expectations most people don’t develop until their 30s. However, when sitting across from a hiring manager and being offered $65,000 to start, the challenge becomes “What happens next?” No one in sports business has a good answer to that question. And right now, nobody’s preparing for it.

That’s not a hypothetical. It’s the predictable result of an industry that has spent four years building the monetization side of NIL without seriously considering what comes after it.

The Industry Built the Front End. It’s Skipping the Back End.

The NIL market has grown from roughly $917 million in 2021-22 to an expected $1.67 billion this season, with revenue sharing set to push that past $2.5 billion. But four years in, the industry is investing almost entirely in the deals, the collectives and the fine print without building anything meaningful on the other end, especially for the majority of athletes who will never go pro.

Here’s what that looks like from an athlete’s perspective: eligibility ends, the platform disappears, the income stops. At best, he or she is handed a résumé template and told good luck. Bill Carter’s NIL Corner survey appearing in SBJ (July 2024) found that 54%........

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