If you have a kid getting NIL offers right now, you already know what I'm about to say. The market moves faster than anyone outside it can keep up with.
Six months ago, a clause I would have called a red flag was becoming standard. This July, I can name three that were unheard of last season and are showing up in half the contracts I read. By the time your family attorney has caught up on where NIL actually sits today, it's already somewhere else. That gap is why families get burned. Not because they hired the wrong lawyer. Because the world moved between the retainer check and the signing table.
That's the gap I'm going to try to close here.
What I'll publish
Every three days, a landscape update. Which deals actually moved. What got quietly settled in a courtroom you didn't hear about. Which clauses started appearing in offers that weren't there a month ago. I'll keep it short enough to read at the kitchen table with dinner going.
Once in a while, a deal breakdown. One real contract, names taken off, walked through paragraph by paragraph. What the family did right. What I would have pushed back on. What the payout actually looked like versus the number the announcement led with.
Sometimes a story from a family in The Room. In their own words. Because a parent who's already sat through their kid's first signing knows things a founder essay can't teach you.
And every so often, a founder essay like this one. When I've got something to say about where NIL is heading and who's positioned to protect the families getting swept up in it.
How I want you to actually use this
Let me be honest about what this is and isn't. Nothing on this blog is legal advice. If you've got a specific contract in your hand, talk to a licensed attorney. The whole site is informational on purpose.
What this actually is: preparation. If I write next Tuesday that pay-for-performance windows are getting shorter across the Big Ten, and your son gets an offer the following week with a three-year lockup on that same clause, you're not blindsided. You already know the question to ask before you sign.
That's the entire idea. You don't have to become an expert in contract law. You just have to know what to ask.
Where you're starting
This is post one. I'm not going to backfill months of old material just to make the archive look full. That's not how I want to earn your time. The first real landscape update goes up in three days, and that's the one that starts telling you something you couldn't have gotten on your own.
If you're here because a friend sent you, or because you're getting close to your kid's first offer and something in your gut says get educated fast, welcome. You're in the right place.
Talk soon.
— Keeno