I assume you are talking about a cash payment to a prospect in exchange for signing a NLOI?
While you and I both know the cash would be given expecting a service (play ball at this university)making it income. The donor and donee would call it a gift. Thus making the "gift" subject to gift tax which is assessed against the donor. Which is even better. However, there is an exemption of $13,000 per person ($26K per couple) per year that you can gift to anyone. Anything over that must be reported. However, you still don't have to pay tax on it. Just report it, as everyone has a $1.5 million exemption on gift tax over their lifetime. Now, nobody is going to file a gift tax return on recruiting money. So, you could have a failure to file issue. However, no US Attorney's office would be interested in prosecuting someone for failure to file a gift tax return. </p>