College level
- Agreeing to future professional representation — still the bright line. Eligibility in the sport is lost on agreement, oral or written. NIL representation is the carve-out (Bylaw 22.3.1 expressly permits it); pro-employment representation is not, outside sport-specific windows.
- Accepting benefits from an agent — money, meals, travel, clothes, phones, arranged tryouts. The NCAA treats these as compensation based on athletic skill. State-law disclosure does not cure it. Enforcer: NCAA enforcement staff. Curable only through the reinstatement process.
- Pay-for-play recharacterization — the College Sports Commission's clearinghouse benchmarks every reported deal against a compensation-range model. A deal with no real deliverables or above-range pay is marked 'not cleared.' Curable: renegotiate, resubmit, or arbitrate (14 days to file; roughly 45-day process; eligibility is stayed during arbitration). Two arbitrations exist so far: CSC won against 18 Nebraska players ('warehousing'); and in the Georgia case CSC voluntarily re-cleared the deals after a model update — despite widespread reporting, CSC did not lose it.
- Missed NIL Go disclosure — the consequence for missing the 5-business-day window is, remarkably, not stated in any primary source we could reach. Treat it as an unforced risk not worth taking.
- Who enforces what: the CSC enforces settlement-created rules (revenue sharing, third-party NIL, roster limits); NCAA enforcement staff handles everything else. Two different bodies, two different processes.
Sport-specific draft windows
- Basketball: since April 2026, a prospect may enter an opt-in draft once without losing eligibility — if they use only an NCAA-certified agent, follow the advisory-committee process, and withdraw by the deadline. Six separate tripwires exist; the cure is timely, proper withdrawal.
- Baseball: the 'advisor' line — advice is fine; the advisor contacting teams, attending negotiations, or working free converts them into an agent and jeopardizes eligibility.
- Football: no dedicated draft-withdrawal bylaw — the general agent rules govern, which makes casual 'agent conversations' riskier than in basketball or baseball.
High school level
- A deal in a ban state costs amateur status outright (Mississippi says so in its amateur rule; South Carolina reversed to prohibition in 2025; Alabama has no NIL policy and its amateur rule bars compensation).
- School marks — the near-universal rule: school name, logo, mascot, or uniform in a paid promotion is a violation even where NIL is otherwise permitted.
- Collectives — several states ban membership itself, not just payment.
- Ohio's transfer presumption — verbatim: 'If a student transfers to a school and the transfer can be shown to be reasonably linked to a student's NIL/Personal Branding Rights agreement, a rebuttable presumption shall exist that the student has been recruited.' Participation can be suspended during the investigation. Rebuttable — but the burden is yours.
- Signing with an agent at all — in Ohio, the amateur bylaw forfeits status for entering an agreement with any sports or marketing agent. Most other associations are silent; read silence conservatively.
The two that override everything
- F-1 international athletes: most U.S.-performed NIL activity is unauthorized employment under federal immigration law — regardless of what any school, state, or association permits. Consequences run to loss of status and future visa bars, with no cure.
- Reinstatement is real but not automatic: NCAA reinstatement staff decide first, a committee hears appeals within 30 days, and outcomes range from unconditional restoration to conditional (sitting out competitions, repaying benefits) to denial. The process exists precisely because mistakes happen — notably, we could find no named 2024-2026 case of an athlete losing eligibility over an agent violation and seeking reinstatement, which says something about how rare the worst case actually is when families know the rules.