One Year of NIL: Becoming a Billion-Dollar Industry

A year ago today, college sports changed forever — from women’s basketball players being paid to appear on a Times Square billboard to football players signing as co-founders of an endorsement marketplace.

Since then, thousands of athletes have been able to benefit from the new name, image, and likeness era. And while there’s more work to do — from the complex legal landscape to gaps in education — the first year of NIL was, for a range of athletes, a major success.

The first year of the NIL era reached a total of $917 million, according to data from Opendorse. Next year will get even bigger — the market could reach $1.14 billion.