Questions about Reckoner, answered
Straight answers on how deal scoring works, what Reckoner does and doesn't do, and what stays private. For the full methodology behind each score, see how Reckoner works.
What is Reckoner?
Reckoner is a free platform that helps college athletes evaluate NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) deals. Submit a deal you've been offered, or one you're already negotiating, and Reckoner scores it across five dimensions and checks it against your own stated career goals.
Is Reckoner free for athletes?
Yes. Reckoner is free for college athletes, including deal scoring, goal-impact analysis, peer comparison, and the pitch kit builder.
How does Reckoner score an NIL deal?
Every deal gets a composite score from 0 to 100, built from five weighted dimensions: financial, brand, social, career, and risk. The weighting shifts based on your top career goal. Going pro shifts more weight toward financial and career. Grad school, licensure, and business-ownership goals shift weight toward brand and social instead.
What are the five NIL deal scoring dimensions?
Financial measures your compensation relative to the deal's duration and deliverable count, so a one-time payment and a monthly retainer aren't compared unfairly. Brand reflects the company's size and, when it's on file, its Google rating, BBB status, and recent news. Social is based on engagement rate, not just follower count. Career checks the deal against specific goal-conflict signals, like a supplement endorsement against a health-profession goal. Risk starts at 100 and deducts for compliance flags, including a missed NIL Go reporting deadline.
Does Reckoner replace an NIL agent or advisor?
No. An agent or advisor is the right call for some athletes, with or without Reckoner. What Reckoner adds either way is an independent, five-dimension read on any offer, so you walk into that conversation already informed.
What is a Reckoner pitch kit?
A pitch kit is built live from your own athlete profile: sport, division, school, and social stats. It gives you a realistic compensation range, a menu of recommended brand categories, and an email and phone script ready to send, so you can go find a deal instead of waiting for one to land in your inbox.
Does Reckoner handle NIL Go compliance reporting?
No, and it isn't meant to. Reckoner tracks the NCAA's 5-business-day NIL Go reporting deadline on every deal you log, and flags anything unreported once that window is close or already passed. Filing the deal and certifying it as compliant stays with your school's compliance office and the College Sports Commission review process.
How does peer comparison work?
When you submit a deal, Reckoner shows how it compares to other real deals submitted by athletes in the same sport, division, and deliverable type. Every comparison includes a confidence percentage based on how many deals are actually in that cohort, so a comparison built on two deals says so plainly instead of presenting itself with more authority than the data supports.
Can brands use Reckoner?
Yes. Approved brands can browse athletes who have opted into a public profile, message them directly, and negotiate real terms in the same conversation. When both sides reach agreed terms, that deal runs through the same five-dimension scoring model an athlete uses to evaluate any offer.
Is my athlete data public?
Only what you choose to share. Your public profile is off by default. Turning it on exposes a limited, explicit set of fields, like your sport, division, school, and social stats, never your scholarship value, deal history, or contact phone number.
What sports and divisions does Reckoner support?
Every NCAA- and NAIA-sponsored sport, and every division from D1 through D3 and NAIA. The same five-dimension score and pitch kit builder apply whether you're a walk-on or a projected first-round pick.
Do I need a big following or blue-chip recruit status to land NIL deals?
No. D3Direct, a media outlet covering Division III athletics, has profiled D3 athletes who built real NIL income with no major-conference platform behind them. The pattern across their reporting: none of those athletes waited to be discovered. They pitched brands directly instead of sitting on a marketplace listing, registered on NIL platforms as an actual discovery channel rather than a formality, and treated content quality as seriously as follower count. Reckoner's pitch kit is built around that same approach: a realistic compensation range, a brand-category menu, and outreach scripts generated from your own sport, school, and social stats, so a walk-on with a modest following has the same tool a blue-chip recruit does.