A private-equity executive with a freshman son on a Power Four roster, a $1.6M NIL package negotiated by a family friend, and no entity between his son and the income. We built the structure his son will still be using in ten years.
The Hayes family reached us two weeks before their son's first NIL payment was scheduled to clear. A family friend with sports-adjacent experience had negotiated a $1.6M multi-year collective agreement, a shoe deal, and an energy drink partnership.
None of the contracts referenced an LLC. None addressed state tax residency. The father, an operating partner at a private-equity fund, saw the structure and called us directly.
Compounding the issue, the mother had been named joint owner of a Venmo account already receiving small appearance fees. The son had signed one of the three agreements before turning 18. The shoe deal contained a seven-year post-eligibility extension nested in a rider.
We formed a Delaware LLC taxed as an S-corp with the athlete as sole member, to hold all NIL, endorsement, and appearance income. We drafted an operating agreement with parental management authority until age 22 and clean handoff provisions thereafter. We issued an EIN, opened a dedicated business bank account, and coordinated a registered agent and commercial mailing address to keep his dorm out of public filings.
We redlined the shoe agreement to strip the post-eligibility extension, added a right of first refusal on renewal, and carved out future professional endorsements. We disaffirmed the contract he had signed as a minor and re-executed it through the LLC. We coordinated with the family's CPA on quarterly estimated taxes and an umbrella policy sized to the new income. And we built them a one-page term sheet the father could use to evaluate any future offer in under ten minutes.
"My son is 19. This structure will still make sense when he is 29. That is how I knew we had the right firm."
— Parent, Hayes Family
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