You and RU66 bring up interesting points. Aren’t there two types of NIL payments/receipts?
1). A car dealership pays an athlete $50,000 for photo ops for advertisement purposes. A business expense for the dealership. Taxable income for the student subject to federal tax and as being self employed subject to both sides of fica, employer and employee and state income tax?
2) someone gives an athlete $50,000 to play for the school. Isn’t that a gift?
Doubt #2 is happens. Instead it's likely routed through #1.
For example - the "collective" isn't just giving money. I would imagine they are "hiring" athletes for meet and greets or appearances (same thing Court Club does for assistant coaches. Funny nobody ever questions the ROI on staff NIL deals).
Just because nobody on the internet sees #1 or thinks the dealership is getting a terrible ROI is meaningless.
If I want to waste a $20k to have Caleb tweet about my business - that's not anyone's business.
This isn't new. Businesses are spending millions on social media "influencers" to tweet or post about brands.