NIL, evaluated honestly

Know what your NIL deal is actually worth before you sign it.

Most athletes take the first offer that shows up and find out what it actually cost them a year later. Reckoner scores every deal you get across five dimensions, checks it against the goals you've set for your career, and shows you the tradeoff before you sign.

More than a paycheck

Most people hear NIL and picture a check. That's the smallest part of what it can be, and it's not the reason Reckoner exists. Your eligibility window is a few years long and it doesn't come back, so the tools here are built to help you get real use out of it while you have it, not just track what lands in your bank account this month.

A deal can hand you equity in a company you actually believe in, a real stake instead of a one-time payment. It can be free product from a brand whose gear you already wear on your own time, or the first marketing campaign you ever help build, the kind of work that becomes an actual resume line instead of a story you tell in an interview. Reckoner checks every deal against your income, but also against what it teaches you and what it's building toward once your playing days are over.

The gap this closes

In NIL's first year, the average deal was worth $0. The median deal, the one right in the middle of every deal signed, was $0. That's according to Opendorse's Year 1 NIL report. Three years later the shape of the market hasn't changed much: football and men's basketball players still capture roughly 84%of all NIL money, per Opendorse's most recent annual report.

A small number of athletes land the deals that make headlines. Most get a fraction of what they're actually worth, usually because nobody ever showed them how to evaluate an offer or negotiate one. An agent or an advisor can help with that, and for some athletes that's the right call, with or without Reckoner. What Reckoner gives you either way is a real, five-dimension read on every deal you're offered, checked against your own goals, so you walk into any conversation already informed instead of guessing.

What we actually do

Submit a deal and Reckoner scores it on five things: the money, the brand you'd be tied to, what it does for your reach, whether it fits where you're headed after sports, and the legal and compliance risk. Every score gets checked against your own stated goals. A deal that pays well but pulls against your long-term plans gets flagged as a conflict, called out on its own line rather than folded into a composite number.

No deal in hand yet? Reckoner builds you a pitch kit from your own profile: brand targets, a realistic compensation range, and outreach ready to send. You walk into that first conversation already knowing what to ask for.

See exactly how each part of this works →

Every level of athlete

This isn't built for one tier of athlete. A walk-on at a D3 school and a projected first-round pick get the same tool, the same five-dimension score, and the same access to a pitch kit built from their own profile.

On your side of the table

Most tools in this space are built for the brand's side: helping them find athletes, run campaigns, or track compliance. Reckoner starts from the other side. We give you the tools and the data to see your own value clearly, not a brand's estimate of it.

That same information, shared on your own terms through your own public profile, gives a brand something real to work from too, instead of a guess.

All athletes have value.

Not just the ones already landing the big deals. Reckoner exists to make sure you realize yours, and get paid what it's actually worth.

NIL for brands

Find athletes who actually fit your brand.

Most brands running their first NIL campaign have no real reference for what a fair offer looks like, at any size. Reckoner gives you real dollar ranges, athletes with public profiles you can actually evaluate, and a place to message and negotiate directly instead of guessing.

What NIL deals actually cost

Real ranges, from a first local partnership up through the athletes already known nationally. Reckoner's own data, pulled from deals athletes submit and score through the platform, will replace the market-wide ranges below as more of it comes in. For now, here's what the market actually does.

Small college (D2, D3, NAIA): $100-$5,000
A local business partnership: a handful of social posts or an in-store appearance, often cash plus free product. D3 deals through Opendorse have averaged around $140 each; D2 athlete NIL value has climbed to roughly $1,500. Local business partnerships (restaurants, dealerships, real estate) commonly run $100-$5,000 including product value (Opendorse/RallyFuel small-college NIL data, 2025-2026).
D1 mid-major / Group of Five: $500-$10,000
Brand ambassador work: recurring social content, appearances, sometimes a licensing add-on. The College Sports Commission reported 17,321 approved deals worth $127.21M in 2025, roughly $7,300 average per approved deal across all of Division I; a broader cross-platform average football deal runs closer to $3,400. Mid-major and Group of Five programs typically land toward the lower half of that Division I range, well below Power Four figures (College Sports Commission 2025 data; Opendorse).
D1 power conference: $5,000-$50,000
A featured campaign with a regional or national brand: dedicated content, appearances, sometimes exclusivity. This is the range for a solid rotation or starting player, not the outlier top of the market. Opendorse estimates the actual Top 25 earners by sport at roughly $294K in football and $349K in men's basketball, a ceiling most Power Four athletes never reach (Opendorse "NIL at Four" report, July 2025).
Nationally known / blue-chip: $1.0M-$5.5M
A full brand portfolio: multiple national sponsors, licensing, media appearances. Real, named examples heading into the 2026 season: Arch Manning at $5.4M, AJ Dybantsa at $4.2M, Jeremiah Smith at $4.2M, Sam Leavitt at $4.0M (On3 NIL Valuations, 2026). A valuation estimates 12-month earning power, not a receipt for money already paid, and this tier represents a tiny fraction of all athletes.

How it works from your side

Browse athletes who've opted into a public profile: sport, division, school, social reach, all in one place. Message an athlete directly once you find a fit, and negotiate real terms through the same conversation, no cold email into the void and no agent as a middleman unless the athlete already has one.

When you land on agreed terms, that deal flows through the same five-dimension scoring model an athlete uses to evaluate any offer, so both sides are working from the same read of the deal, not two different sets of assumptions.

Your first NIL deal doesn't have to be a guess.

Reckoner exists to close the information gap on both sides of the table, not just the athlete's.