In college sports’ NIL era, ‘there’s no real rules’ for agents. And some like it that way

FORT WORTH, Texas — Standing on the side of a practice field in late April, watching a training session for eight college defensive linemen they represent, Jacob Piasecki and Francesco Tricomi are discussing a topic they relish: people who can’t stand them.

“NFL agents have no f—ing clue how to do this,” Tricomi said.

Piasecki, 29, is the co-founder of A&P Sports Agency, an Austin-based company born five years ago at the dawn of college sports’ current era of chaos, and Tricomi, 26, is his director of operations. In just a few years, agencies such as A&P have barged into college sports like profane party crashers. They’re lamented by college coaches and general managers and resented by their NFL peers, who say they’re accountable to no one.

Without a central governing body or players union, NIL agents – who represent college athletes in financial deals involving revenue sharing and name, image and likeness rights that give the space its catch-all acronym – operate with little-to-no certification in an unfettered environment.

They can charge much larger fees than the 3 percent allowed by the NFLPA. Some shop players they haven’t even met. Some flood the Instagram DMs of high school prospects. Some push players to transfer who aren’t looking to transfer — so that the agency can get a cut of a new deal the player wasn’t even seeking.

Piasecki has landed on a one-word philosophy to describe the two industries — college football and athlete representation — his company helped reshape: discretionary.

“There’s no real rules,” he said. “So everybody is doing things at their own discretion.”

For those who have spent long careers representing athletes, the approach of the class of agents unleashed by NIL is maddening, if not a threat to their industry.

“You’re either an agent or you’re not,” said Buddy Baker, a longtime NFL agent. “You don’t get to just declare yourself an agent if you don’t have an expertise in this field. … Unfortunately, in this space right now, we don’t have any (oversight). People are just planting their flag and saying, ‘I am an agent.’”

“It’s bastardizing our profession, for sure,” said one longtime NFL agent, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on condition of anonymity in exchange for their candor.

“These guys, they’re not agents at all,” added another. “I’m trying to go through some handler who has no f—ing clue what my world is or what we’re doing. And he’s like, ‘How much money can you get them?’”

The 20-somethings at A&P have come to wear disparagement as a badge of honor, and there’s no denying their foothold: In the past college football transfer portal cycle, according to A&P, the agency negotiated more than $30 million in player contracts and many millions more in marketing deals.

“There’s certain things that I look for in people that even agents that have been doing whatever professional sport for 10, 15 years can’t match,” Tricomi said on the sideline of the practice field. “There’s no experience in this. That’s why we’re outperforming NFL agents in NIL right now.”

“You’re getting your ass handed to you by somebody who wasn’t even in this f—ing world five years ago,” Piasecki replied.

“If they didn’t hate us,” Tricomi added, “we were doing something wrong.”

Both Piasecki and Stefan Aguilera, three years his senior, ran businesses as undergrads at Texas A&M — Piasecki a social app for college students, Aguilera an online publication titled The Aggazine that effectively served as a marketing agency. Bars paid Aguilera to post their specials, which led to him becoming a promoter, which led to him hanging out with football players. He got them in campus clubs cover-free; they attracted more people to the clubs.

It was an Aggies tight end, Jalen Wedemeyer, who first told Aguilera about the sea change coming to college football: It would finally be permissible to pay players for use of their name, image and likeness. Would he want to help out with some marketing deals? For Aguilera, a light bulb went off. He asked Piasecki if he wanted to start a broader business representing athletes.

“S—,” Piasecki said. “I see dollar signs.”

They launched A&P on July 1, 2021, the first day college athletes could legally profit from NIL.

At first, Piasecki said, “there was no f—ing dollar signs.”

At that point, NIL reps were essentially marketing firms. Players inked deals with local businesses and promoted them on social media or in commercials. “Other agents were very dismissive,” Piasecki said. “No one took NIL seriously back then. In ’23, ’24, it was still looked down upon, as a joke.”

How we established ourselves in the NIL Space pic.twitter.com/qDtoY4VJxT

— Jacob.Piasecki (@Jacob_Piasecki_) June 27, 2023

But the world changed in June 2025 when a court ruling enabled schools to pay athletes directly through revenue sharing. The term “NIL agent” became a misnomer — most make more negotiating contracts with schools than on actual name, image and likeness deals. A&P said it negotiated $12 million in contracts in 2024. The firm said it just surpassed $30 million in 2026, including a deal for an SEC left tackle for $2.75 million.

Matt Brownstein saw the shift coming. A longtime baseball agent for CAA, perhaps the most powerful sports agency on the planet, he left for A&P in January, wanting the opportunity to shape an industry and build something new without constraints. “I know Congress is trying to get involved, but there’s really no rules to this,” Brownstein said. “And I kind of enjoy the chaos.”

Plenty have deemed it “the Wild West.” Several agents, coaches, and general managers cited the practice of pitching a player to schools before he’s even aware he’s being marketed: Self-proclaimed agents will call a program, gauge its interest, and set the price. The agents then will take that price to the player — whom they have never met — and guarantee the deal if he signs with them and enters the portal.

“Every agent is going to go after everybody’s guys,” Piasecki said. “It’s not like we have this creed where it’s like, ‘Don’t go after our players.’ Everyone is always trying to get other people’s players. I just think if your client is happy, they’re not going to explore options.”

Some stories stretch beyond lawlessness into absurdity. In early July, Noah Reisenfeld, an NIL agent with a prominent social media presence, sued the agency Young Money AAPA — co-founded by rapper Lil Wayne — for breach of contract, alleging they treated him as an employee rather than an independent contractor, and directed him to represent NFL players despite not having NFLPA certification. (In the lawsuit, Reisenfeld described himself as “a pioneer” and “passionately motivated.”) Young Money filed a counterclaim, which included allegations that Reisenfeld smoked marijuana inside a Florida home the agency rented and “left his dog’s feces all over the Property.”

Lawmakers have taken note. The Protect College Sports Act — backed by both the Big Ten and SEC earlier this month — includes a section devoted to college agents. It caps their fees at 5 percent, prevents them from signing players beyond their college eligibility and bars them from misrepresenting themselves or making false promises about future contracts.

As it stands now, a handful of states require potential agents to join a registry with minimal effort — fingerprints, an annual fee. But there is no central clearinghouse or competency standard. The result: mayhem for coaches and general managers, who often receive calls from different people claiming to represent the same player. Boston College coach Bill O’Brien said he spoke with around 75 agents during the last portal cycle alone.

The vast majority of players and their families lack the experience and savvy to navigate the subtleties of the transfer portal. Several coaches and general managers expressed concern that they may be entrusting their futures to agents with similar naivety.

“When one player comes here, he’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m talking to him and him and him,’” Nebraska GM Pat Stewart said. “They’re talking to multiple different agents to try to get advice without signing a deal with them. That becomes kind of a chaotic situation as well.”

After Colorado State changed coaches this offseason, GM Alex Collins struck a deal with one of the players who’d entered the portal. “He goes, ‘OK, I think I’m gonna fire my agent. I don’t need one now,’” Collins said. “I’m like, ‘OK, that’s not how agencies work.’”

At Boston College, O’Brien instituted an agent education program for players. He had seen too many players taken advantage of by the people hired to protect their financial interests. Reisenfeld said in a YouTube interview last year that the standard fee charged by NIL agents is 20 percent. Depending on a player’s situation, Piasecki said, A&P charges between 7 and 10 percent.

“You pay the kid 100 grand,” O’Brien said. “You say to the kid, ‘What are you paying this agent?’ And he says, like, 10-15 percent on a $100,000 contract that that particular agent didn’t do anything for. That’s crazy.”

During one transfer cycle, Virginia Tech general manager Andy Frank received an email from an agent with a list of players looking to enter the portal. One was on his roster. “We talked to the player. He’s like, ‘I had no idea he was doing that,’” Frank said. “I believe him.

“I want to be sure I’m not the guy who says, ‘Oh, all these agents are bad.’ Because they’re not,” Frank added. “There’s a lot of them that are doing a good job for their clients. … The things that really get to you is when they’re doing things that their clients don’t necessarily want or aren’t interested in.”

The lack of transparency creates other issues. Every NFL agent can look up any contract in the NFLPA’s database, effectively making the deals public. For NIL, no such reporting exists.

“There’s a guy I used to work with,” one longtime NFL agent said. “He loves NIL because he sucks as an agent, and (now) he’ll never get exposed.”

Experienced agents have had to relearn parts of their job and find new ways to approach it. One joked about buying shaving kits for high school players.

“Nothing feels right about what you’re doing,” he said. “But you’re doing it to make a living.”

This agent resisted dipping into the NIL space until a client he had signed — a player who would’ve been a top-100 pick in last spring’s NFL Draft — decided to stay in college. “So he gets a seven-figure deal and I get paid on that NIL deal, and I’m like, ‘Gosh, dude, that’s so much money. And it’s so much easier.’”

It’s late April. Piasecki lounges on a couch inside a western wear shop on the main drag of Fort Worth’s stockyards, holding a can of Montucky Cold Snack. A handful of A&P clients are perusing the merchandise — caiman skin boots, oversized belt buckles — after a day of training. A defensive end A&P steered from UNLV to Virginia asks if he can buy a belt. A defensive tackle who transferred from Texas to UConn tries on a black cowboy hat and makes finger guns in the mirror.

A videographer captures it all, footage that will later flood A&P’s social media feeds.

An NIL deal isn’t merely quick cash for an athlete; it’s a vital promotional tool for an agency. The landing page of A&P’s website features a video of former USC wideout Brenden Rice (Jerry’s son) driving a Ferrari. Its Instagram feed is dotted with videos of players shopping at Johnny Dang and Co., the famous Houston jeweler.

The glimmering pieces they’re showing off? The players don’t actually own them. A&P buys the jewelry for them to wear, then returns it at the end of their contract unless the player chooses to buy it. Rivals whisper that A&P is fooling its clients into thinking they own jewelry worth five figures.

“They can hate all day if they want,” Tricomi said. “Guys love it. We love it. A lot of them are trying to replicate it.”

A&P insists they buy the jewelry with the players’ best interest in mind: Rather than the players blowing money on expensive baubles, the agency can effectively rent it for them.

“We can scratch that itch for them so they don’t start a bad habit with all that spending,” Tricomi said. “It’s good promotion for us. That’s a whole other network. (Jeweler) Johnny Dang is like a cornerstone of hip-hop, so the kids, they love him.”

In many ways, A&P has matured alongside the industry, creating its own limits rather than testing them. A&P partnered with high-profile lawyer Tony Buzbee, another Texas A&M alum, whose firm handles legal issues and contractual details. It teamed with a financial adviser to create a “financial fitness playbook” for clients. The firm’s leaders bemoan practices such as agents selling players they’ve never met, and they say they don’t recruit high schoolers. This spring, in an expansion of their services, A&P paid for training sessions for clients, grouped by position, with well-known skills coaches. (The resulting online content juiced their recruiting efforts.) They see NFL representation as part of their future, and already they have shifted focus to help as many clients as possible reach the league.

“For us, it’s more so, what is the best fit for the player?” Piasecki said. “In combination with the money and the playing time, the scheme, the coaching staff – does it all align and get him to where he wants to be?

“As a fan, you don’t see that. As a fan, you probably think we’re the biggest assholes because we destroyed your team. We just annihilated your O-line room or your D-line room.”

It’s not just fans. In late May, Piasecki paced across a conference room in a half-filled office building by a highway on the outskirts of Austin and dialed the general manager of a Power 4 school.

“The man, the myth, the legend!” the GM answered.

Piasecki checked in on clients who played at the school, got a tip about an emerging player who needed representation and chatted about the school’s chances this fall. Then the general manager delivered some gossip.

“People have s— to say about y’all,” the general manager said. “And people try to badmouth y’all.”

As much as their business has boomed, A&P retains a degree of fake-it-till-you-make-it energy. A day after speaking with the Power 4 GM, Piasecki sends an Instagram direct message to the prospect he recommended.

“Love your game,” he writes. “I just finished watching your tape with our scouting department. Are you available to connect on a call?”

Piasecki looks up from his phone, about to say something he swears he usually wouldn’t. But time is of the essence, and Will Scott, the agent who comprises A&P’s scouting operation, is on a road trip.

“If he responds,” he says, “I’ll watch his tape.”

Back in the summer of 2021, Ohio State called its football players in for a series of meetings. The agenda was the financial opportunities now before them: endorsement deals, sponsorships, other means of revenue long barred by the NCAA. Inside the room, some started to speculate how much the Buckeyes’ most recent quarterback, Justin Fields, would have made under NIL.

“Someone mentioned $1 million,” said Zen Michalski, a freshman offensive tackle at the time. “And we were all like, ‘What!?!’”

Today, top-tier quarterbacks make up to six times that.

“I was the starting quarterback for a small Division II school,” vented one longtime NFL agent. “And NIL was meant for me to not have to pay for my cheeseburger and fries and milkshake at Grumpy’s. It’s not meant to make kids freaking multimillionaires and become a profit share.”

But, thanks in large part to revenue sharing, that’s exactly what it’s become, an arms race devoid of guardrails.

Michalski fired his first agency after it pushed him to transfer from Ohio State before he was ready. “I want to graduate first,” he told them. So he stayed in Columbus, earned his degree and helped the Buckeyes win a national championship. A year later, repped by a new agency, he took less money to sign with Indiana because he felt it was the best fit. In January, he added a second national championship.

“You have to be really, really careful,” Michalski said. “Some agents will come in and act like they want what’s best for you. They want the quickest paycheck.”

The money flowing into college sports, particularly football, isn’t slowing down. Those who saw dollar signs early are cashing in. Piasecki was back in his office the morning of May 27, hours after lawmakers rolled out the Protect College Sports Act that Congress continues to debate. He wondered whether an antitrust exemption would hold up in court if it capped athletes’ salaries without collective bargaining.

He noted that college football actually once had a salary cap of sorts — a college education, plus room and board, for every scholarship player — and for decades most every serious program in the sport circumvented that agreement through widespread under-the-table payments.

“How do you fix a system,” Piasecki asked, “when the system is based on not following the rules?”