The "Trust Me" Era of NIL Is Over
A short history lesson of new markets
New markets usually open the same way. The first movers don't have data. They have instinct, nerve, and the willingness to act before anyone else does. In those early days, confidence is the currency. Say it with enough conviction and people believe it.
NIL ran on that currency for years, but that account is running on empty.
A recent example
Think about how brands used to buy digital display ads — they picked websites they liked and negotiated rates based on projected traffic. Then something called programmatic advertising arrived: data replaced the negotiation, and every impression was priced in real time based on actual audience data. Buyers benefited and paid for who they reached.
NIL is at that inflection point. Saying it's so no longer makes it so.
Why it matters
There is NIL data to be had everywhere you look. For example, athlete valuations used to be guesses dressed up as analysis. Deal structures were borrowed from pro sports and retrofitted. Brands, universities, and advisors made decisions based on whoever spoke with the most authority. The market rewarded confidence. It rarely checked it.
And that's just one example — again, NIL data is everywhere and it's not just about a player's value.
Between the lines
Every audience making NIL decisions is feeling business pressures.
Brands spent years buying NIL on reach and reputation. CMOs are now asking for ROI frameworks. Confidence is no longer a deliverable.
Athletic Departments want to know how to allocate $20.5 million in revenue-sharing dollars across football, MBB, and WBB rosters. That's a data question.
Professional service providers — attorneys, agents, financial advisors — have been operating on market intuition. The advisors who walk into client meetings with actual athlete market data win more clients and are harder to replace.
Data is everywhere
The companies gaining ground in NIL right now aren't all pure-play data firms. Many of them sell something else entirely — compliance tools, payment processing, athlete marketplaces, representation services. But the ones separating from the field share one trait: they are generating proprietary insights from their core operations and using that intelligence to make better decisions, build better products, and attract better clients.
Opendorse's primary business is NIL infrastructure for athletic departments. But their annual market reports — built from 175,000+ athlete users and $250M+ in processed NIL compensation — have made them the most cited source in the industry. The data isn't the product. The data makes the product irreplaceable.
Co-Founder Blake Lawrence joins NIL Forum tomorrow, June 15 at 1pm ET to break down what Opendorse's data is actually showing — and what it means for the decisions you're making right now. Become a member to watch at NIL Forum.
The bottom line
The first phase of NIL rewarded speed and confidence. The next phase rewards evidence — and the companies building proprietary intelligence into everything they do, not just the ones selling reports, are the ones pulling away. Saying it's so was enough in 2021. In 2026, data wins.
About the NIL Forum and Bill Carter
The NIL Forum is the advantage for people making NIL decisions — providing monthly live speakers, proprietary data, and networking. NIL Forum Founder Bill Carter has advised brands on Name, Image, Likeness for 25 years — first in pro sports, now at the college level. He was the Co-Founder of the Gen Z sports agency Fuse, which he sold in 2019. In 2020, he founded Student-Athlete Insights and consults on NIL strategy with Fortune 500 companies and 30+ DI universities.