How Big League Advantage courts a cut of athletes’ paydays

And then the Facebook message landed.

“We have a 6 figure financial/NIL opportunity for you,” the messenger wrote, identifying himself as a former college quarterback and representative of a “data & analytics firm” called Big League Advantage. “Would love to discuss more if you’re interested.”

It was a fortuitous if fraught time for college athletes. The U.S. Supreme Court had ruled a year earlier that athletes could no longer be deprived earnings from their personal brands, enshrining their so-called “name, image and likeness” (NIL) rights. Lawmakers, universities and the NCAA were scrambling to codify NIL policies as hefty checks began rolling in. Suddenly permitted to earn money for their stature, college athletes started showing up on television commercials, at trading card shows and at whatever marketing events sponsors could come up with. Companies rushed in to associate themselves with a new generation of rising stars.

Dexter wrote back and learned the details of an unusual offer. BLA, as the firm is known, would pay him $436,485 immediately, according to the resulting contract. In exchange, Dexter would fulfill the sort of services typical of NIL deals: signing autographs, making appearances and posting branded content on social media.

But there was a catch that made the offer different from other deals emerging at the dawn of the NIL business. BLA sought much more than the right to use Dexter’s name, image and likeness. It wanted a cut of his future income: If Dexter made the NFL, he would have to pay 15 percent of his pretax salary to BLA. For the entirety of his NFL career.

Making sense of the deal meant navigating a nascent and disjointed system designed, theoretically, to help athletes make potentially life-changing financial decisions. A lawyer associated with a group of university boosters expressed concerns about the agreement, records and interviews show. But the University of Florida official whose job it was to vet such deals gave it an unreserved green light, calling the offer “solid” and “legal.”

On May 17, 2022, eight days after the birth of his first child, Dexter signed with BLA. His financial woes eased, he turned in a solid junior season, and the next April, the Chicago Bears selected him…