Say you get 2M in college through NIL. It’s from several different groups so you can defer a lot of the earnings through different company retirement plans and set up residency in any state you want to avoid income tax.

If you’re international you may not have to pay any income taxes at all.

Compare that to either league and you’re paid as an employee in each state the game is played so you’re paying 14% tax rate on 1/82 of your salary for every game played in California or New York. In college you’re not paid for play so there’s none of that.

Sure hope our guys are getting the best tax planning advice.