I'm linking a fairly decent April 2024 article I turned up in a web search. In addition to directly participating in third-party deals with parties like Triumph, I believe that Virginia institutions are also permitted to engage in NIL deals directly and can hire athletes to promote the institution's brand. When I was talking about front-loading NIL deals, I was referring to the proposed House settlement, which has provisions not just for revenue sharing but also NIL. Apart from damages from former athletes and revenue sharing going forward, the proposed settlement has terms related to NIL deals. From this article https://www.avemarialaw.edu/house-settlement/ there is the following: "Since athletes will still be permitted to contract with third parties for their NIL rights, the settlement establishes a robust NIL enforcement and oversight program with mandatory reporting for any NIL payments over $600.[21] However, any NIL payments from third parties would not apply towards a school’s 22% cap.[22] In support of the new oversight program, the NCAA argues that it will ensure fairness and transparency across the NIL landscape.[23]" My sense is that most NIL deals are bogus pay for play arrangements having nothing to do with actual name, image, and likeness value. If this "robust NIL enforcement program" auditing future NIL deals puts an end to fake NIL deals (hint: it won't), an athletic program's "salary cap" is essentially the uniform revenue sharing limit plus the value of legitimate NIL deals. My "frontloading" comments are alluding to the likelihood that NIL deals struck prior to effective date of the settlement (i.e., very soon) will be exempt from any auditing provisions. I expect that if the robust NIL enforcement program is actually robust, it will likely to draw one or multiple lawsuits from prospective parties to "above market value" deals. The NCAA's track record in such suits recently is poor. It's not clear to me how this auditing provision would cover contracts between athletes and other entities that are not parties in the settled lawsuit. I suppose the athletes participating in revenue sharing could be treated as members of the class in the suit, so maybe that helps the case of the auditing mechanism.