I say gray market because they are not expressly illegal, just against NCAA regs. Am I mistaken that another perk of gray market deals is that the payor could include explicit pay-for-play requirements, such as to discourage transferring? NILs are pretty much all one year deals because who wants to get stuck paying for a transferred player to keep making car commercials, right? And clearinghouse deals cannot be pay-for-play. But a deal the clearinghouse never knows about could include all kinds of terms and conditions. Not only pay-for-play, but even bonuses or penalties for performance, and for as many years as both sides agreed upon. Yes? The obvious downside is that if someone (the player) thinks they've been screwed on a deal and goes public, the only one really at risk for sanction is the school.