How athletes can be missing out on NIL dollars by 'essentially commanding their own number'

As the spring transfer portal window enters its third day, NIL remains the biggest discussion point. The 15-day period began Tuesday and will continue through May 1.

This transfer window is different from the last one, though. In February, a judge in Tennessee granted a preliminary injunction that helped pave the way for athletes to directly negotiate with NIL collectives during the recruiting process. That’s why there’s perhaps more attention on this two-week stretch than any previous portal window.

But to On3 scout Cody Bellaire, there’s a down side if athletes go in wanting a certain number – or, perhaps, aiming too high.

“What I’m hearing from guys in the industry that I know really well, they’re all talking to each other,” Bellaire told Andy Staples on Andy Staples On3. “No one’s getting surprised. The camaraderie of this business in the personnel side of things, there’s a very small group of us that have been in the business. Everybody knows everybody, for the most part, or you know someone who knows someone. So if you’re getting a number from a prospect or they’re telling you they’re making ‘X’ amount of money or whatever, it takes about two phone calls to really get that number.

“Like, ‘Hey, man, this kid’s telling us making $300. Is that really the case?’ Two phone calls and you go, ‘Oh, no, dude. That kid’s making $150.’ Alright, cool, we’re gonna let him know that – we called his bluff, essentially. And I think that’s the tough part right now is you’re having prospects essentially command their own number, and you’re either gonna have schools that call their bluff or don’t. And they’re gonna be losing out on some serious cash that way.”

As athletes enter the portal, roster retention is of the utmost importance, and NIL dollars plays a major role in that area, On3’s Pete Nakos reported. Staples also pointed to the role booster-funded collectives play in the next couple weeks and how the market will shake out.

In fact, he heard an example of a potential top target “not going anywhere” because of the amount he was getting at his current school.

“Some people were thinking it was going to be a bunch of big-time starters just jumping in and trying to get the biggest bag,” Staples said. “But I feel like collectives have gotten sophisticated enough that they know where the market is. I had somebody tell me about – there was a running back at a school. This is a person I thought tons of schools would target. They said, ‘You know he’s scheduled to make $300,000 this year?’ I’m like, ‘Oh, well he’s not going anywhere’ because very few schools would even pay him that.”