How Can a Salt Lake City Business Do a Local NIL Deal With a College Athlete?

A Salt Lake City business can pay a college athlete for the use of their name, image and likeness. The athlete reports any deal worth $600 or more to NIL Go, the College Sports Commission's review platform, within five business days; one designated representative may enter it for the athlete to submit. Utah law rules out six categories of deal. And if the business or its owner is tied to the athlete's school, as a collective, or a donor who has given the school more than $50,000, is, the deal must show a real business purpose and, above the 2026 exemption band, pay in line with comparable athletes.

If you own a local business, or you are an athlete or parent a business has approached, what follows is general education, not legal or tax advice. The official rules are linked in the sources below, and athletes should run any deal past their school's compliance office before signing. For the athlete's side of the process, start with the Utah NIL Guide.

How can a Salt Lake City business do a local NIL deal with a college athlete?

Treat it like any other marketing agreement, with three NIL-specific checks:

1. Is there a real business purpose? For a payer associated with the athlete's school, the rules require that a deal promote goods or services offered to the general public for profit, so paying an athlete without asking them to promote anything does not qualify.
2. Is the business associated with the athlete's school? That decides how hard the deal is reviewed.
3. Is the product allowed under Utah law? Six categories are off-limits for college athletes in the state.

The College Sports Commission's guidance turns on specifics, so a written agreement should spell out what the athlete will do, when, and how the business will use their name, image or likeness.

What counts as a valid NIL deal

The commission's published rules describe a deal with a valid business purpose as one that promotes or endorses goods or services provided to the general public for profit. Its FAQs give everyday examples of NIL work: posting about a brand on social media, appearing in an ad or commercial, signing autographs, promoting events or products, and appearing at an event.

The same documents list deals that fail when the payer is associated with the athlete's school: being paid but not required to promote anything, being paid with a promise to use the athlete's NIL "eventually" with no defined plan, and payments meant to get the athlete to attend a school. Under NCAA Bylaw 22.1.3.3, an associated payer's agreement must include direct activation of the athlete's NIL, and one that lacks reasonable specificity about the athlete's obligations, the timing and how the NIL will be used may not satisfy the rule.

Nonprofits have their own standard. Under Bylaw 22.1.3.2, a deal with a charitable organization counts as a valid business purpose only if the money originates with the nonprofit and the athlete takes part in an activity whose primary purpose is raising funds for its charitable mission.

Is my business an "associated entity"?

This is the question that matters most for a local business, because the commission reviews associated payers more closely. Its fact sheets say deals with companies or individuals not associated with the athlete's school "are not subject to the same level of scrutiny."

Under the commission's definition, a business or person can be associated with a school by being:

• an entity that exists, in significant part, to support a particular school's athletics program or athletes, or to create NIL opportunities only for that school's athletes (a collective, for example);
• an owner, employee, director, officer or agent of such an entity;
• an individual who has contributed more than $50,000 over their lifetime to that school or to such an entity, directly or through an affiliated entity or family member;
• anyone asked by the athletics department to help recruit or retain athletes, or who has done so; or
• a business owned, controlled or operated by any of the above, other than a publicly traded corporation.

A dealership or restaurant owned by someone who has given a school more than $50,000 can fall inside that definition even if the business itself has never sponsored the team. An associated payer's deal must also stay within a range of compensation, which the commission describes as pay commensurate with what similarly situated athletes with comparable NIL value receive. Factors include the deal's obligations, the athlete's performance and social reach, and the local market. Smaller deals are a partial exception: since July 1, 2026, deals between $600 and $15,000 have generally avoided the range-of-compensation review, as our NIL Go explainer details, though the business-purpose test still applies.

What Utah law does not allow

Utah's 2025 law, House Bill 479, which took effect May 7, 2025, bars a college athlete at a Utah institution from signing an agreement that promotes:

• tobacco products or e-cigarettes, including vaping;
• alcoholic products;
• a seller or dispenser of a controlled substance, which the bill says includes steroids, antibiotics and marijuana;
• gambling or betting;
• a sexually oriented business; or
• a firearm the athlete cannot legally purchase.

The same law lets a Utah institution pay its own athletes directly for NIL, but not from money the Legislature appropriates or from student fees, and says an athlete is not a school employee because of that pay.

Who reports the deal, and when?

The athlete does. Every NCAA Division I athlete must report third-party NIL contracts or payment terms worth $600 or more in the aggregate to NIL Go within five business days of signing or agreeing to payment terms, and the penalty for failing to report is ineligibility, according to the commission's summary of the bylaws. The commission's FAQs for incoming high school and junior college athletes add that non-cash benefits, such as food, gear or services, must be reported when their total value is $600 or more.

NIL Go then returns one of three outcomes: cleared, not cleared, or flagged for additional review. If a deal is not cleared, the athlete can revise it with the business and resubmit, cancel it and refund the money, or appeal to a neutral arbitrator. Build review time into a campaign's schedule, and keep the contract detailed.

The same explainer covers the review process in more depth.

Can I work through an NIL agency?

Yes, within limits. Athletes may use agents for NIL activity under Bylaw 12.02.8. Bylaw 22.3.2 lets a professional service provider, such as an agent, a marketing agency or a multimedia rights holder acting as a marketing agent, help facilitate payment, provided the business that will use the athlete's NIL is the original source of the money. Schools themselves may also act as marketing agents for their athletes in third-party deals. What a school may not do is promise or guarantee an athlete a third-party NIL deal.

Junior college and high school athletes

The Salt Lake Valley is also home to Salt Lake Community College, and the commission's rules follow junior college athletes who move up: a junior college athlete who later transfers to Division I must report deals worth $600 or more with payments from their two-year enrollment or July 1, 2025, whichever is later. High school athletes have their own rules from the Utah High School Activities Association, including a ban on school uniforms and team names in promotions; see our guide to high school NIL in Utah.

Pricing and paperwork

Our guide to pricing a sponsored Instagram post walks through a reach-and-engagement method, and the public NIL valuations of Utah college athletes show how the market values the state's best-known names. Athletes should also read our guide to NIL taxes.

Businesses looking for wider Utah sports partnerships, rather than a single athlete deal, can start at Utah sports partnerships.

Key facts:

• Allowed: paying a college athlete for NIL work such as social posts, ads, autographs and appearances
• Reporting: the athlete (with one optional designated representative entering the deal) reports deals worth $600 or more in the aggregate to NIL Go within five business days; failure to report means ineligibility
• Associated payers: collectives, their staff, donors of more than $50,000 lifetime, recruiting helpers and businesses they control face a valid-business-purpose test and, above the 2026 exemption band, a range-of-compensation review
• Utah bans: tobacco and vaping, alcohol, controlled substances, gambling or betting, sexually oriented businesses, and firearms the athlete cannot legally buy (H.B. 479, effective May 7, 2025)
• Outcomes: cleared, not cleared or flagged; a not-cleared deal can be revised, cancelled and refunded, or appealed to a neutral arbitrator
• Agencies: allowed to facilitate payment if the business using the NIL is the original source of the money
• Schools: may act as marketing agents but may not guarantee third-party NIL deals