Fortune: NIL still uneven five years

Fortune reported on August 5 that the college sports economy remains uneven five years after athletes first won the right to profit from their name, image and likeness. The article said coaches still make more than many of the athletes they oversee and that NIL collectives have helped build a market that rewards scale, donor backing and marketing polish. That leaves football and men’s basketball at the center of the biggest payouts, while athletes in smaller sports often compete in a thinner sponsorship market. Fortune’s framing lines up with current NCAA rules and with outside academic analysis published this week. ### If athletes can make NIL money now, why is the market still uneven? July 1, 2021 was the date the NCAA first permitted athletes to earn money from their name, image and likeness, reversing its previous bar on those deals, according to NCAA guidance and a new analysis published by The Conversation. The result was not a single national market with equal access. It was a patchwork shaped by state laws, school resources, booster networks and how easy an athlete was to market. The Conversation article, published August 5 by a sport-management scholar, said “a small percentage” of athletes became rich while “the vast majority” earned modest income, if any at all. The same article said NIL collectives — typically funded by boosters, alumni or fans — were created to help athletes secure sponsorship money, but in practice produced what the author called an “unregulated pay-for-play system.” (ncaa.org) ### What exactly are collectives doing in this system? NIL collectives emerged as outside groups that connect money, sponsors and athletes, especially around high-profile programs. Their influence has been greatest where a school has wealthy donors, strong fan support and enough administrative help to package athletes for deals, according to The Conversation’s account and NCAA rule documents. (theconversation.com) The NCAA’s proposed and adopted post-House rules show how formalized that environment has become. NCAA language says schools or school-controlled entities may enter written NIL agreements with athletes and may act as marketing agents for noninstitutional NIL contracts, but schools may not guarantee third-party NIL payments. Contracts or payment terms above disclosure thresholds must be reported through NCAA mechanisms. (theconversation.com) ### Why do smaller-sport athletes feel this more than football stars? Football and men’s basketball players are easier to package because they play in the most visible sports, appear on television more often and sit at the center of donor and media attention. Athletes in golf, tennis, track, swimming or other smaller sports may still find deals, but those deals are more likely to depend on local brands, social-media reach, school support and personal presentation than on competitive results alone, according to Fortune’s description and the outside academic analysis. (ncaa.org) The imbalance is not only about who performs best. It is also about who has the infrastructure around them. That includes collective access, compliance help, content production and alumni networks that can turn an athlete into a sponsor-ready product. Fortune said that dynamic has helped create an uneven pay environment rather than a uniform merit market. (theconversation.com) ### Has anything changed since the House settlement took effect? June 23, 2025 was the date the NCAA said it formally adopted additional Division I rule changes to implement the court-approved House settlement, with those changes effective July 1. The NCAA said schools that opt in can provide more direct benefits, scholarship limits are replaced by roster limits, and athletes may see more scholarship opportunities across sports. (theconversation.com) Those changes do not eliminate NIL. They sit alongside it. That means the current college-pay system has two tracks at once: direct school-provided benefits under the settlement structure, and outside NIL deals that still depend heavily on marketability, donor ecosystems and school-adjacent support. ### So what is the clearest takeaway five years in? August 2026 is showing that NIL did not flatten college sports economics. (ncaa.org) It opened athlete compensation, but the benefits remain concentrated around the athletes and programs with the most visibility and the strongest backing. Coaches still command larger guaranteed salaries, and athletes outside the revenue sports still face a market where packaging and institutional sophistication can matter as much as performance. The next places to watch are NCAA NIL guidance pages, disclosure-rule updates and any further changes tied to House-settlement implementation. Congress is also still considering broader college-sports legislation, but for now the uneven system described this week remains the one athletes are navigating. (ncaa.org) (theconversation.com)