In Steve Smith’s third year as UCF’s director of player development, the school started prepping for the upcoming revolution.

Soon, for the first time, college athletes would be able to make money off their name, image and likeness.

“They all call me ‘Smitty,’ and they said, ‘Smitty, you need to make sure none of our athletes jeopardize their eligibility prior to this being passed and going into effect,’” Smith recalled.

UCF’s compliance department mentioned then-starting star quarterback Dillon Gabriel, who wanted to launch a clothing brand. It was Smith’s introduction to NIL, and it opened his eyes to uncharted territory and what he considered boundless opportunities. A few months later, in August 2021, he pivoted careers and became an NIL agent.

Smith formed his own LLC and registered with the state of Florida as a sports agent. His first client? The easygoing left-handed QB from Hawaii.

Smith, and others who saw need and opportunity, joined an industry where everyone is navigating an evolving marketplace. It goes beyond setting up partnerships with brands, as Gabriel, who transferred to Oklahoma and then Oregon, has had with Old Spice, Sonic and others. The collision of NIL with the transfer portal has created its own cycle of competitive matching between school and player, in which NIL deals are part of players picking new programs.

Collectives affiliated with schools often offer packages ranging from the tens of thousands to, in the biggest cases, the millions, in exchange for social media posts, public appearances or autographed memorabilia before or after a transfer signs with his new school.

The spring portal window closed in April after being open for two weeks. In that span, more than 850 scholarship football players entered the portal. In total, more than 2,600 scholarship college football players entered the transfer portal this offseason looking for a new home.

Because of challenges to the NCAA in federal court, rules prohibiting NIL deals from serving as inducements to attend particular schools are no longer enforced, and athletes are allowed unlimited transfers and immediate eligibility.

When it comes to the portal, some agents, several of whom spoke with The Athletic on the condition of anonymity, said landing the biggest deal with collectives is the priority for some players. But some agents said they’re not trying to squeeze the most money out of what is essentially college free agency — their aim is to help athletes create a marketable brand by looking at the big picture.

NEWS: Top QB Jaden Rashada is entering the transfer portal per his agency Disruptive Sports @disruptivesport @henryorgann pic.twitter.com/jIiZnG3FN2

— Cameron Wolfe (@CameronWolfe) April 18, 2024

Agents’ involvement in the transfer portal has been more visible, with players citing or thanking their agencies on transfer announcements and reps speaking on their behalf to reporters regarding offers and visits. But their roles appear varied with a broad range of qualifications and involvement.

A common saying, even by the agents themselves, is that anybody’s aunt or uncle can act as an NIL agent.

Players, coaches and agents say publicly the “football fit” comes first when players seek to transfer. And getting on the field matters for long-term aspirations. But the money, either to stay at a current school or pick a new one, makes the process more complex.

“I don’t think most kids go in the portal for money,” said Russell White, president of Oncoor Marketing, who represents college athletes in the NIL space, as well as NFL and NBA players. “They just want to make sure they capitalize on that piece.”

That’s where agents can come in.

Chase Moss, CEO of First Class Prospects, said a common blueprint to get players entering the portal more attention is to release information to recruiting sites or reporters with a large online following. That’s when staffers from schools often follow the player and/or agent on social media and begin to work on this round of recruitment.

“We don’t have them commit until we have (an NIL) deal, because otherwise there’s no point,” Moss said.

When a player enters the transfer portal, how do they know what they should be worth? The specifics of deals usually remain private.

“That’s based on conversation and experience in the marketplace,” said Jeff Hoffman, whose agency, Everett Sports Marketing, has represented 2024 first-round NFL Draft picks Marvin Harrison Jr., Brock Bowers, Xavier Legette and others. “It’s talking to other agents, collectives, and having relationships to have an understanding of where people are being offered in that pay band to know where my guy should be.”

During open transfer windows, just hearing what players are being offered can prove invaluable.

“The beauty of the portal is, once you get in, a ton of schools can contact you, and that’s where the information just flows,” White said.

Last fall, Nebraska coach Matt Rhule told reporters that the anticipated going rate in the portal to sign a starting-level quarterback in NIL funds is anywhere between $1 million to $2 million.

Star quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, some tight ends and some defensive standouts make the most, said the director of a power conference collective, speaking on the condition of anonymity, and some of the best-run collectives can pay well for first- and second-stringers, and sometimes beyond. Agents who spoke to The Athletic said they were aware of which programs’ collectives appear to have the most money to spend on NIL — and which ones don’t.

GO DEEPER

‘It’s basically like a silent auction’: Why are college football NIL deals hush-hush?

Agents say they can protect players from signing bad deals. Negotiations can include elements like use of a car, pay for parents’ travel to games and disability insurance. Without representation, some players transferring this offseason, Hoffman said, may not have a full understanding of how deals can work.

“Let’s use a round number: I’m going to transfer, and I’m getting paid $100,000,” Hoffman said. “Half of that is going to my car and my apartment. The other $50,000 is breaking down into monthly payments. I have to pay taxes on that, so that’s taken out. So let’s say after that I am down to $36,000 and getting paid $3,000 a month. For that $3,000 a month, I need to attend 10 events, post 15 times on social media and provide 10-20 signed pieces. It’s just not viable. It’s not commensurate with the pay.”

But using an agent can also come with potholes. In December, The Athletic detailed how a disconnect between former Syracuse linebacker Leon Lowery and his former NIL agents nearly derailed his transfer to Wisconsin.

“I would say most are working in the best interest of (their clients), in terms of making more money,” one agent said. “But what percent are good or make good decisions or help them? I would say few.”

Some parents, agents say, have pushed their children to enter the portal in search of a heftier paycheck or have negotiated built-in stipends for themselves in NIL contracts.

One agent told The Athletic of parents or family members handling negotiations: “It seems the assumption is, ‘We could do this on our own.’”

In recent years, many high-profile programs created the role of a general manager who helps bridge the gap between coaches and collectives. If a player is wanted by a staff, a GM will inform a collective CEO to be prepared to reach out to the player or the player’s agent.

Said one agent: “When it comes to NIL conversations, it’s collectives. We’re not really dealing with coaches. But at the same time, I do talk to coaches. ‘Hey coach, our guy is thinking about entering the portal. Is this somebody you’d want in your locker room? How quickly could he get on the field for you? What holes do you need to fill?’ So we talk about on-the-field stuff. I’m not saying coaches don’t talk about money, but it’s typically not what is discussed.”

Said Smith, now part of Legend Agency: “Once you have your school and somebody likes it and is a good fit, then the conversation really does come down to: What is market value right now? What other offers have you received? Here are the deliverables, are you on board with those deliverables? And then the collective has to understand, does this person add value to what else we’re trying to do?”

One common issue agents and collectives alike have faced is misunderstanding of worth in the NIL marketplace.

In the middle of bowl season in December, there were more than 1,800 players in the portal. Some agencies offer consultations to players or negotiate short-term NIL contracts just to see what the process is like.

“Not everyone is going to make a lot of money,” Smith said. “It’s like the real world. Not everyone is rich.”

The biggest opportunities are there for big-name players like Gabriel, who can harness the full power of NIL, more along the lines of how many expected NIL to work before the rise of collectives. At Oklahoma, in addition to partnering with the Crimson and Cream OU Collective, Gabriel had existing deals with EvoShield, Rock ‘Em Socks and more. He’s retained a few preexisting deals since moving to Oregon.

Dillon Gabriel settled in at Oregon this spring ahead of his sixth season in college football. (Eric Evans Photography / Courtesy of Oregon Athletics)

Aided by Smith, he’s become involved with local NIL deals, including a roofing company and a clothing brand called Ducks of a Feather, which allows participating athletes to profit off merchandise sales. It was launched by the Oregon collective, Division Street, headed up by two former Nike executives.

Similarly, Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard is represented by Peter Webb and Doug Young and their NIL agency, QB Reps, which represents only quarterbacks. The duo has 20-plus years experience in sports marketing and coaching at various levels. In addition to Leonard, they represented former Oregon QB Bo Nix.

“When a kid goes into the transfer portal and has all these different opportunities from these different schools, slowly we’re just able to build an evaluation process at every single school, but only for quarterbacks,” Webb said. “If you’re a five-star quarterback that goes to Alabama, Clemson or LSU or Oregon, we’re going to know exactly what that looks like.”

Webb and Young, who also worked with Leonard while he was at Duke, said he has 10 NIL partnerships, including Gillette, EA Sports, Topps, Leaf trading cards and Rhoback apparel, with more in the pipeline. Mission BBQ, one of Leonard’s first local partnerships, is 10 minutes from Notre Dame Stadium in Mishawaka, Ind. The new Fighting Irish starting quarterback is already in high demand.

“This is a different story when Riley is arriving at Notre Dame than if he’s arriving at some other school,” Young said.

Exact numbers of NIL agents aren’t known. Most states require agents to register, but qualifications — and enforcement — are light. Some agents hope to represent players who make it to the NFL, where agents must be certified by the players association.

The range remains predictably immense. Some players like Arizona State wide receiver Raleek Brown and Tulane wide receiver Mario Williams have hired Jay-Z’s Roc Nation to represent them. Then there are some who hire agents whose websites listed in their online social media bios still don’t work. Some go it alone.

“We still have kids making $100,000 or more that aren’t using NIL agents for negotiations,” said the collective director, who estimated maybe 10 to 15 percent of the 150 deals his group strikes a year are negotiated by agents.

The commission taken home by agents can vary greatly, too. While the general consensus ranges anywhere from 10 to 20 percent on NIL, some agents can take a cut as low as 5 percent. Some take no commission on deals negotiated with collectives. One agent who spoke to The Athletic said no agent should be going above 20 percent under any circumstance.

The collective director said the running joke of “someone’s aunt or uncle” doesn’t always refer to nefarious intentions or bad endings. Oftentimes it works out just fine. But he added regulation in the NIL space is needed across the board.

The NCAA is working to build and maintain a voluntary registration portal for agents and other professional NIL service providers — a pet project of NCAA president Charlie Baker. Several agents who spoke to The Athletic doubted it would make much impact.

GO DEEPER

Why is the NCAA proposing a new subdivision? Explaining the related legal battles

NIL continues to evolve. A proposal by Baker could lead to collectives moving in-house and schools paying athletes directly. The many lawsuits putting pressure on the NCAA may lead to a new model of athletes as employees who collectively bargain.

“The players should like ‘the wild west,’ because that’s where you can maximize. Others don’t because it’s not mutually beneficial at the moment,” Gabriel said. “However, I think there’s definitely changes on the way. I know this is not sustainable long term.”

(Top image: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletic; istock)

On Monday night, Oklahoma City Thunder center Chet Holmgren knocked down two free throws with 9.4 seconds remaining in Game 4 against the Dallas Mavericks. They were huge makes, bringing the Thunder closer to evening the series.

The Mavericks had no timeouts left. They had to rush up the court to get themselves back in the game. At that point, fans should have been wondering if they were about to witness a signature playoff moment. Would Luka Dončić shake off a rough night and lift his team? Would Kyrie Irving add to his formidable highlight reel of awesome playoff moments? Would Shai Gilgeous-Alexander strip someone in the backcourt, wrapping up a huge night for him? Would Holmgren come charging out to the 3-point arc off a switch and send a shot into the Dallas night?

Instead, as the Mavericks moved the ball around to create a good look, Gilgeous-Alexander intentionally fouled P.J. Washington. The Thunder were leading by three points. It was the right move. Giving up a maximum of two points when leading by three made sense with so little time remaining. The Dallas forward split a pair of free throws with 3.2 seconds left, Gilgeous-Alexander hit both of his at the other end and that was that. Thunder win.

Pretty anticlimactic, no?

Casual NBA viewers often criticize the ends of games for taking too long. Those complaints are justified, and the league has addressed them in part. Before the 2017-18 season, the NBA changed its rules to limit teams to two timeouts in the final three minutes of games instead of three timeouts in the final two minutes, as it had been previously.

Well, here’s another problem: In the situation the Thunder faced Monday night, teams are not encouraged to defend without fouling. Free throws are among the least interesting and most time-consuming parts of basketball, and the nature of the rule is leading to more of them, not fewer. Worst of all, it is robbing viewers of potentially iconic moments.

Let’s change the rules, then. Here are two proposals.

1. If your opponent is in the bonus and you are winning by three points or more and you foul your opponent beyond the 3-point arc, your opponent gets three free throws.

2. In the same scenario, there is an extension of the current “take foul” rule, with the trailing/fouled team getting an automatic free throw and possession. This is my preferred option.

It might seem counter-intuitive to use the threat of more free throws to cut down on the number of free throws late in a game, but the free throw is the most efficient shot in the game. In the first proposal, a team would give the opponent a chance to tie the game at the free-throw line. In the second, it could set up a scenario in which the opponent could win with a made free throw followed by a made 3 (or tying it with a made free throw and a 2). No team is going to pursue those options purposefully.

There are potential loopholes, which I will get to in a moment. The current rules encourage players and coaches to consider three scenarios that all defy the spirit of the game.

1. Prioritizing fouling over playing defense without fouling. It makes for an interesting philosophical debate, but anything that moves away from settling the game while the clock is running is not optimal.

2. If the trailing team thinks an opponent is trying to foul, its players might try to rise up for an unnatural shot while the leading team attempts to deploy the strategy. That is just another way of trying to bait the referees into a foul call with unnatural shot attempts, an activity the league is actively trying to curb.

3. If, when trailing by three in the final seconds, a player hits the first of two free throws, he is then encouraged to try to miss the next one in a way that maximizes the possibility of an offensive rebound that produces another field goal attempt. Why do we have a system that promotes missing a shot on purpose? (On Monday, Washington missed the first free throw. Instead of trying to miss the second one to generate an offensive rebound and potential game-tying 3-point attempt, he made it.)

There are counters here, and I am not claiming that either of the above proposals would be a perfect solution. Most notably, teams have 47 minutes and 36 seconds to avoid trailing by three points with the shot clock turned off. Speaking of free throws, the Mavericks missed 11 of their 23 attempts on Monday. The Thunder fouling Washington was not the primary reason Dallas lost.

Additionally, what about the team that is leading? That team is intentionally fouled more often than the trailing team to extend the competitive portion of the game. Well, the second part of that sentence is the crucial bit, isn’t it? I have no problem with a rule that applies to one team but not the other given the specificity of the scenario.

Finally, such a rule could encourage another type of grifting: a player for the trailing team creating unnatural contact to obtain the advantage afforded by yet another rule designed to help the team with the ball. That would just be exchanging one form of grifting for another, though. It is not a net gain in referee deception.

There would naturally be other unintended consequences of any such rule change. I’m all for sniffing them out and trying to make the best rule possible. What I do know: Every basketball fan has a few buzzer-beating or last-second shots they will never forget. If anyone has a similar list of “best uses of a take foul to maintain a lead,” I’ve yet to meet them. I don’t really want to, either.

(Top Photo of Luka Dončić after a late-game foul: Tim Heitman / Getty Images)

Who’s pitching tonight?

For 100 years, that wasn’t just a casual question. It was the question that defined baseball.

The answer always had a chance to give you goosebumps. Maybe it was Tom Seaver versus Steve Carlton. Maybe it was Sandy Koufax versus Bob Gibson. Maybe it was Pedro Martinez versus Randy Johnson.

They weren’t just a reason to watch. They were the reason to watch. They threw the first pitch of the game. They often stuck around to throw the last pitch of the game. When the stars hold the ball in their hands 100 times a game, from the first minute of a game to the last, that’s where so much of the magic comes from. But now, those nights of pitchers’ duel magic are slipping away.

Ten active major-league starting pitchers have won a Cy Young Award — and nine of them have spent time on the injured list in 2024. The only exception: Baltimore’s Corbin Burnes. But no need to remind you of all the aces who aren’t healthy enough to ace. There are larger forces at work here that are just as big a concern for the people who chart the future of this sport.

The issue is not only the health of the modern starting pitcher, but the role those starters play in the sport these days. Those two things are also connected. Here’s only one recent example:

May 6, Wrigley Field. San Diego Padres versus Chicago Cubs. Theoretically, this was one of those pitching matchups to savor: Yu Darvish, onetime Cubs ace, starting for the Padres versus Justin Steele, a 2023 All-Star and the Cubs’ 2024 Opening Day starter. But was it the stuff of goosebumps? No. The score at the end of five innings was 0-0. Both starting pitchers had allowed only three hits apiece … and, naturally, neither of them was still in the game. Seven relievers ate up the last 25 outs. Just another slice of baseball life in 2024.

True, both starters had spent time on the injured list this season, so they were being handled carefully. But those injuries — and how teams respond to them — are part of a crisis that seems to loom larger over baseball every year.

Should Major League Baseball sit back and let starting pitchers practically disappear? Should it let them recede in prominence, giving  away the essential entertainment value they’ve provided for the last century? Or should it act? Should the league step in to halt this trend the way it stepped in only one year ago, when it introduced a pitch clock before the sport arrived at a place where every game dragged toward a midnight finish?

“I think everybody agrees,” says Texas Rangers ace Max Scherzer, a three-time Cy Young winner currently working his way back from (what else?) another injury. “You’ve got to get the starting pitcher back. From an entertainment standpoint, people watch the matchups. That’s a big part of baseball. If you don’t have that matchup, every day is the same.”

Once every day becomes the same, is that when your sport is officially in trouble? Maybe that feels like a question for another day, another season. Except that in reporting this story, The Athletic talked with three longtime baseball executives who used the term “existential crisis” to describe the state of starting pitching.

When one of those executives was asked, as a follow-up question, if he honestly believed that term reflected the depth of this problem, he replied, pointedly: “I do. I think the game is totally broken from that standpoint.”

What could baseball do?

Let’s draw a football analogy. Suppose the analytics gurus in the NFL suddenly decided the best way to win a game was Quarterback by Committee … so every team rolled out four quarterbacks and Patrick Mahomes might never throw a pass in the fourth quarter of any game. How fast do you think that league would change its rules?

“It would outlaw that in about six minutes,” said one of the baseball executives interviewed for this story. All of them were granted anonymity so they could speak candidly about an issue viewed as especially sensitive in their sport.

But in baseball, the league has largely stayed out of the way as teams’ analytics departments took the sport down a similar road: Overload the roster with eight relief pitchers who can throw a baseball 98 miles per hour. Then stop waiting around for the starting pitcher to get tired. Get him out of the game and cue the parade of fireballers out of the bullpen.

The data may show that approach is the most efficient way to get outs. But the best baseball strategy isn’t always the best entertainment strategy. Inside most front offices, that’s not a major concern. But in reporting this story, The Athletic did find a few executives willing to ask why more of their front-office peers weren’t more worried about this trend.

“For the industry, it doesn’t have to be that way,” said one of them. “Can we take a step back and look at our sport from 20,000 feet?”

The league proved, with its rule changes a year ago, that it can act when it sees a crisis approaching. But has the starting pitcher crisis risen to that level? MLB officials declined to comment for this story. However, industry sources tell The Athletic that while the league views  this issue as a priority, it is still gathering information, via an extensive study of pitching injuries. So it is likely years away from taking action. And even then, some of those changes would need to be phased in over several years, because the repercussions would trickle down all the way to youth baseball, where the health of young arms is also a growing concern.

In the meantime, however, the brainstorming has already  begun. What rule changes could the league consider to help keep pitchers healthier and restore the prominence of the starter? The Athletic has spent the past few months collecting ideas proposed by executives, players and coaching staffs.

They all would address this issue. But they also were all met by so much fierce debate that it illustrated the challenge the league would face to get everyone on board with any of them.

“I think that’s why it’s hard,” said one American League exec. “There are no easy answers. If it were just one thing that we could easily turn a dial … there wouldn’t be a lot of really smart people at the club and league level trying to work on this. But it’s very complicated.”

Here are four potential rule changes you could see someday.

New rule idea: Every starter has to go six innings

Last year, the length of the average major-league start plunged to an all-time low: 15 outs (or five innings) per start. Not even starting pitchers themselves think that’s anything to brag about. So here’s a goal some in the sport would love to shoot for:

How about the starter goes six (or more) in almost every game — barring extenuating circumstances? Is that doable? Why not? That used to happen, you know, and not 100 years ago.

Even 10 years ago, as you can see in the graph above, the percentage of starters who made it through six innings wasn’t that dramatically different from what we saw  in the 1970s, a pitching era so golden that it produced 10 Hall of Fame starting pitchers. It’s only in the last five or six seasons that it began to change so significantly. So would it be outrageous to require that every starter get back to that six-inning standard — barring injuries, 10-run blowups, inflated pitch counts or other exceptions that could be negotiated later?

Why “require” it? Ultimately, the league might not push in this direction. But here’s why it might: The best rule changes are the simplest. So instead of a more subtle rule that the league might hope would lead to longer starts, it would take its best, simplest shot and just say: This is now the rule.

What would the penalty be? What would happen if a manager hooked their starter before six — and that starter didn’t meet any of those extenuating  circumstances? Good question. The league could say that pitcher had to be placed on the injured list. It could also impose discipline, via fines or suspensions.

Or what about a case like that Yu Darvish-Justin Steele game, in which both starters were being handled more cautiously as they built back from a previous injury? Sorry. The league probably would say that pitcher should still be on the IL working his way back on a minor-league rehab option.

Who would complain? Relief pitchers, obviously, would grumble about almost all of these ideas because this would dramatically change their job description — even if that’s the whole point. But almost every analytically inclined front office would complain just as loudly.

Why, they’d ask, should their teams be forced to push their fifth starter through the sixth inning when they have five unhittable relievers who could rescue him? And how can anyone be sure, they’d wonder, that even those fifth starters would be on board with this?

“It’s really hard to force pitchers to start and go (six innings),” said one exec, “because in my opinion, you’re going to get into all sorts of situations where you ask: Is someone faking an injury? How do they feel? Even if they’re not hurt, they might think: ‘They forced me to stay out there when I wasn’t effective and then I got hurt.’”

So it’s possible, even likely, that a rule requiring six-inning starts would be so harsh, it would gain very little support. If that’s the case, the league could pivot to rules that simply incentivize teams to push their starters deeper into a game. There are several options. Here’s one we’ve written about before.

New rule idea: The “Double Hook”

Unlike most of these ideas, the Double Hook already exists. The independent Atlantic League, a longtime testing ground for MLB rule changes, first experimented with this rule in 2018. Back then, here’s how it worked: When your starting pitcher leaves the game, your designated hitter also has to leave the game (or, at least, go play a position).

But after teams complained, the Atlantic League began tinkering. So by 2023, it used this version: If your starting pitcher leaves the game before the end of the fifth inning, only then does your DH have to leave with him.

What was wrong with the original rule? Would any team really prefer a rule that would keep its best hitter from ever coming to the plate late in a game? Think about all those dramatic walk-off October home runs David Ortiz once hit as the Red Sox DH. It will answer that question.

Why might the Double Hook actually work? You would be surprised by how many people in baseball like this rule. If the idea is to incentivize (but not require) keeping a starting pitcher in the game, what works better than this? Leave your pitcher out there or bench one of your most dangerous hitters? The concept is brilliantly simple.

Who likes it? Some of the most prominent starting pitchers in baseball — Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Adam Wainwright, among others — have been the Double Hook’s biggest public fans. But more front-office minds also seem open to this concept than many others they’ve heard.

“I have been in favor of the Double Hook for a while,” a National League executive said. “I think it would be interesting to have. It adds an extra element of strategy into the game for managers to think about, gives them another decision they have to make in-game, which I don’t think is a bad thing in general.”

Who hates it? The Designated Hitters of North America aren’t sold, for one thing. And one AL executive spoke for his fellow front-office critics when he called it “one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard.”

“We want close games, right?” that exec said. “We don’t want blowouts. And if you’ve got the Double Hook, you’re going to have a boatload of blowouts. (If you lose your DH) you’re playing a man short, basically, like a soccer team with a player on a red card. Or you attempt to not play a man short, and the game gets out of hand because you’re trying to leave the starter in there for that extra hitter. Then that turns into three or four or five runs, and now you’re done.”

So is there an alternative to the alternative? At this point, everything is on the table. Scherzer, for one, sees no limit to possible incentives you could dangle to keep starters in the game.

“You could sit there and say: You get a free substitution,” Scherzer said. “You could pinch run for a catcher. You could make an instantaneous defensive replacement for an inning, you know what I mean? Keep upping the ante, if the starter goes out and does his job, how much extra stuff would you get as a benefit? So the idea would be if you pull your starter, you’re going to lose a ball game because you pulled your starter early.”

New rule idea: No more than 11 pitchers on the roster