Somewhere in the first real conversation with a prospective agent, a number comes up. Fifteen percent. Twenty. Ten and a half. The family hears the number and argues about the size of it, because that feels like the point of the conversation. It is not the point. The point is what that number is a percentage of.
A percentage with no attached base is a sentence with no noun. Twenty percent of an endorsement deal means something. Twenty percent of a household's entire money picture means something very different and very large. Before you have any argument about how big the cut is, you need to be clear with one another — and eventually in writing — about which money is even in the conversation.
This is the part of choosing someone to work with that rarely gets the treatment it deserves, because it is easy to speed past. Everyone wants to know what the deal looks like and what the agency costs. Almost nobody asks the quieter question that protects the household for years: on what money, exactly, is this person paid? Let's slow down and answer it properly.
An agent is paid for a specific job, on a specific base
An NIL agent does real work. They find or field opportunities, talk to brands and collectives, protect the athlete's image, and handle the negotiation and the paperwork that turns an opportunity into a contract. That is a genuine service, and it deserves to be paid like one. The honest frame is simple: the agent is paid for NIL work, on NIL money.
That means the base is the money your athlete earns through a deal — an appearance, a social post, a licensing agreement, an endorsement, the things that run through their name, image, and likeness. If the agent sources it or services it, the agent is entitled to a share of it, under whatever split the two of you agree to. That is where the cut belongs.
What is not in the base is just as important, and this is where families get quiet and let a boundary slip. A scholarship is not NIL money. A federal student grant is not. A financial aid package is not. A check from a family business is not. A club or travel team fee the family pays out of pocket is not. A summer job is not. These have nothing to do with the athlete's name, image, or likeness, and they are not the agent's to take a piece of.
Most agencies are clear about this. The reputable ones do not want a share of a scholarship or a grant, not because they are cautious to a fault, but because it invites trouble they do not want and it is simply not their work. The warning sign is not the honest agency that says here is my cut and here is what it is on. The warning sign is the one who wants the base to stay blurry, so that down the line they can interpret a wide bucket as theirs.
The gray money your family should put in writing
Between the clean cases sits a middle band where families genuinely cannot tell whose money it is, and this is precisely where agreements get written — or fail to be. Treat this band the way you would treat any other important rule of the house: decide it, say it out loud, and write it down.
- An appearance fee for a camp or a clinic. If the agent books it, it is deal money. If the school or a parent books it directly with no agent involvement, a family can reasonably keep it out of the base. Say which — in writing — before the first appearance.
- Money the family routes through its own company. A parent's business paying the athlete for marketed work can be a legitimate arrangement, but it is family money, not agent-sourced deal money. The agent's cut does not reach into it by default.
- A licensing or image-rights payment that arrives outside of a deal the agency sourced or negotiated. Some agencies are paid for all image revenue; some are paid per-deal. Those are different homes and the agreement must say which one you are in.
- A signing bonus or a piece of a contract the athlete signed before the agent came on. Money that predates the relationship is not automatically in the new base. Write the effective date of the agreement into the paper.
None of this is about mistrusting the person across the table. It is about a family deciding its own rule before a handshake replaces a boundary. When two adults agree quietly on a percentage and never define the base, the base is whatever the larger check says at the end of the year. That is a bad way to run a household and a worse way to enter a professional relationship.
The one line a family should be able to say out loud
Here is a test that will carry you through most of these conversations. Your household should be able to say, in one plain sentence, what the agent is paid on. If you cannot finish that sentence comfortably, you are not ready to sign a representation agreement, no matter how good the number sounds.
It might be: the agent is paid twenty percent of deal money the agency sources or negotiates, and nothing on scholarships, grants, family business, or pre-existing contracts. That is a clean, defensible sentence. A reputable agency can sit with that sentence easily. If the words get tangled, if the percentage starts reaching for money that has nothing to do with a deal, that is a conversation to have before a signature, not after.
Put the sentence in the room, and then put it in the agreement. A simple clause stating what the base is and what it excludes takes care of far more future pain than any negotiating over the size of the cut. The size of the cut is an argument. The base is a boundary, and boundaries are cheaper to set than to fight over.
And pay attention to who earns the money. If a deal lands with no work from the agency — a school rolls an arrangement forward, a brand reaches out to the family directly, a contract the family already had keeps paying — the family gets to decide, not the paper, whether and how the cut applies. A good agreement respects the difference between money the agent made and money that was already the household's. This is the moment a General Manager earns their role: the GM does not negotiate the endorsement, the GM manages who does, and part of managing who does is making sure the family is not paying twice for money that was never theirs to begin with.
Write it beside the other family rules
The cleanest way to keep all of this straight is to fold it into the place your family already keeps its decisions. If you keep a family money binder, one page in it should be the representation rule: who the agent is, what they are paid on, and what is off the base. If you keep your own record of the NIL money, the percentage and its base belong on that page too, because you will want to check the cut against the deals as they actually land.
Writing it down does three quiet things. It forces the family to agree before the pressure of a real deadline or a real check arrives. It gives the agent a clear, fair expectation, which most good agents actually appreciate, because it removes the ambiguity that causes friction later. And it hands the athlete a household that knows its own rules, which is worth more than any single deal.
The deeper point is about who runs the money. The athlete's job is to play and to stay eligible. The agent's job is to work the deal side of publicity and likeness. The household's job is to hold the base — to know what the money is, where it comes from, and what it is for. When each person holds their one job, the family does not shrink in any conversation. When the household gives its one job away, it shrinks in all of them.
Same argument, different money
It is worth saying plainly that this same discipline — decide on what money, in writing, before you sign — protects the family in directions we have not even named. A percentage that quietly reaches into a scholarship. A vein that tries to attach to a family trust or an inheritance that has nothing to do with the athlete's image. A fee pegged to a lump sum that rides on the athlete's name but was never sourced by the agent. The specific money changes; the discipline does not. Ask what the percentage is a percentage of, agree on it out loud, and get it onto the page.
None of this is an argument for refusing to pay a good agent. A good agent is worth every dollar of a fair cut on the money their work brings in, and the family that pays it well gets better service. The argument is only this: know what the cut is a cut of, agree on it before the deal, and keep the parts of the money picture that belong to the family firmly on the family's side of the line.
Hire the General Manager before the agent. The agent works a deal; the GM manages who works the deals and holds the line on what the family's money is for. Together they give an athlete what an athlete cannot build alone — a family that knows its own rules and a set of professionals who respect them. If your household is standing at the very beginning, before any agent is hired and before any percentage is named, and you want a calm read on drawing that line, write info@athlete-gm.com or call (845) 920-1600. Introductory conversations are complimentary. No pitch deck. Define the base first, and the cut will take care of itself.
