THE FOA BRIEF The insider knowledge ambitious sports professionals actually need.
Issue 007 | May 2026
THIS WEEK: NIL — Name, Image, and Likeness — has been part of college athletics for several years now. The initial wave of chaos has settled into something more structured, more sophisticated, and significantly more interesting from a career standpoint. There are now entire professional functions built around a market that didn't exist five years ago.
WHERE THE MONEY IS
The NIL market is estimated at over $1 billion annually — and that number grows every year as more brands, more athletes, and more infrastructure enter the space.
Here's where that money flows and who manages it:
Athlete representation and management. Agencies, collectives, and independent advisors who negotiate NIL deals on behalf of college athletes. This is a relationship-driven, legally complex function that requires business acumen, contract literacy, and talent evaluation skills.
Brand partnerships and activation. Companies of every size are now executing NIL deals — local businesses, regional brands, national consumer companies. Someone has to source those deals, structure the terms, manage the deliverables, and measure the outcomes. That's a full-time job at mid-to-large agencies and in-house at some brands.
Collective operations. NIL collectives — organizations built specifically to pool money and direct it to athletes at specific schools — are now established business entities. They have executive directors, partnership teams, and communications functions. These are real jobs with real organizational structures.
University compliance and administration. Every major athletic department now has staff dedicated to NIL education, compliance support, and athlete resources. Schools have built entire departments around this.
Content and social. NIL deals almost always involve content deliverables. Athletes with significant followings command premium deals. The people managing that content — producing it, distributing it, measuring its performance — are operating at the intersection of sports, media, and marketing.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
If you're targeting a career in sports, NIL is not just a news story. It's a career map.
The infrastructure built around NIL created entry points that don't require 10 years of experience or a seat at an existing organization. Collectives are hiring. Agencies are building NIL practices. Brands are looking for people who understand athlete marketing.
The candidates getting into these roles are the ones who understand both the business and the ecosystem — not just the headlines.
ONE THING MOST PEOPLE GET WRONG
NIL is often framed as an athlete story. It's also a business infrastructure story.
The athletes are the product. The business professionals are the ones building, operating, and scaling the market around them. Understanding that distinction — and positioning yourself on the infrastructure side — is how you build a durable career in this space.
YOUR NEXT MOVE
Research two or three NIL collectives associated with major college programs. Look at who runs them, how they're structured, and whether they're hiring. This is a part of the sports business landscape that most candidates aren't paying attention to yet — which means opportunity for the ones who are.
That's Issue 007. If this hit different than what you expected from a sports newsletter — good. That's the point.
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See you next week.
— The FOA Brief thefoacademy.com