The National Letter of Intent has been the long standing means that students and NCAA teams would contract to trade athletic participation for student aid, (scholarship).  Now there are ways to compensate athletes directly.  (outside of the NLI contract and the University).  Most of the discussions I’ve read assumes NLI will remain in place and the NIL will complement NLI in regards to the athlete.

Imagine deep pocket football traditional power money mandarins align with team athletic departments to compensate players directly, over and above a scholarship with NIL dollars thereby supplanting the scholly.  This could preclude that player from having to be subject to NLI restrictions at all.  With walk on status a player could profit and the team wouldn’t have to burn a scholarship.  This could allow rich teams to collect more depth without the over signing stigma currently used to maintain quality depth.  

Looking at NIL outside the NLI box could spin off a myriad of scenarios