NIL Usage Rights: What Happens to the Content After the Deal Ends

Written By Ray Dietrich

Every athlete deal I have ever signed had an end date. Almost none of the first ones said what happened to the content after that date. That gap is where NIL usage rights live, and it is where I have watched more brand-athlete relationships go sideways than anywhere else in the agreement. Not over money. Over a photo that was still running in a paid ad six weeks after the deal ended, and nobody could point to the paragraph that said whether it was allowed.

I run marketing for a football performance gear brand. I have signed, paid on and renewed deals with high school athletes, college athletes, 7v7 programs and content creators, with my own money and my own product on the line. I also spent 25 years in direct-response consulting. So my view of an athlete is simple: an athlete is a distribution channel. Nothing starts until a customer hands over an email or a card. The content is what makes that happen. Which means the content rights are the deal, not an afterthought.

This is general information from the brand side, not legal advice. I am telling you what I put in my own agreements and why.

The two ways this fails

The first failure is the brand's fault. The deal ends. The ads keep running because they are working and nobody on the ad team knew the term was up. Then the athlete signs with a competitor, or a parent sees the ad, and the call comes. You go to the contract. The grant of rights says "for the duration of this Agreement." Nothing more. You are now using the athlete's name and image commercially with no permission, and you have a new sponsor's lawyer asking why.

The second failure is the reverse, and it costs the brand real money. The deal ends on a Friday. Because the grant was "for the duration of this Agreement," the brand pulls every ad with that athlete on Saturday. Including the three that were carrying the whole campaign. Nobody was mad. Nobody called. The brand just threw away working creative because the paper gave it no runway.

Both failures come from the same missing paragraph. I wrote about the rest of that paper in what a real athlete agreement has to include. This article is about the part that survives after the signatures stop mattering.

Three things people confuse

When someone says "we own the content," they usually mean one of three different things. Each one is a separate right, and each one can be owned by a different person.

  • Copyright in the file. The photo or video itself. Under federal law, copyright vests initially in the author, meaning the person who created it. That is the photographer or videographer, not the brand that paid for the shoot and not the athlete in the frame, unless the work qualifies as a work made for hire or the rights are transferred in writing.

  • The athlete's NIL, or publicity, rights. Permission to use a real person's name, image and likeness to sell something. This is state law, and it varies. Cornell's legal encyclopedia describes the right of publicity as one that prevents the unauthorized commercial use of a person's name, likeness or other recognizable aspects of their persona, and notes that it is protected mostly by state common or statutory law, with only about half the states recognizing it by that name and others folding it into privacy or unfair-competition law. So the answer to "how long can I use her face" depends on where you are, and mostly on what the contract says.

  • The posts themselves. A reel on the athlete's account. A post on the brand's account. Whether those stay up after termination is a third question, and it is one the contract has to answer on its own.

You can own the file and have no right to use the face. You can have permission to use the face and not own the file. And you can have both and still be arguing about whether a post comes down. Write all three.

NIL usage rights after termination: how I write the tail

I call this the usage tail. It is a defined runoff period for paid advertising after the deal ends. Here is what mine says, in plain terms:

  • A paid-ad runoff window. Content created during the term can keep running in paid advertising for a set number of days after termination. I use 60 to 90 days. That is my number, not a legal standard. It is long enough to let a working campaign wind down and short enough that the athlete's next sponsor is not staring at my ads all season.

  • Organic content stays up. Anything already published on either side's owned channels during the term stays in place indefinitely. It is part of the record. The exception is a compliance reason, which I cover below.

  • No new content after the term. The tail lets me keep using what exists. It does not let me shoot, edit into new ads, or repost as if the relationship is current. If the athlete's shoot photos are still on my hard drive, they stay there.

  • The section survives termination. This is the sentence people forget. If the usage clause dies when the agreement dies, the tail is worthless. I write it so the usage section, the copyright assignment and the confidentiality language expressly survive.

The NIL Contract Template Pack has this usage-tail language in every agreement, because I got tired of rewriting it.

The photographer clause nobody signs

This one costs brands more than any athlete dispute. You hire a photographer for a shoot. You pay the invoice. You assume you own the images. Under 17 U.S.C. §201, you do not, unless the work is a work made for hire or you took an assignment. A work made for hire is either something an employee made within the scope of employment, or a specially commissioned work that falls into a short list of categories in the statute and that both sides agreed in a signed writing to treat as a work made for hire. Standalone photos are not on that list. And 17 U.S.C. §204(a) says a transfer of copyright ownership is not valid unless it is in writing and signed by the owner of the rights.

Read that again. A handshake and a paid invoice do not move the copyright. The shooter owns the footage you paid for until they sign something that says otherwise. My clause library includes a copyright assignment I have every photographer and videographer sign before the first frame. It is in the pack. Use it.

What the grant of rights has to name

A grant that says "the Brand may use the Athlete's likeness" is not a grant. It is an argument waiting to happen. Mine names each element:

  • What is granted: name, image, likeness, voice, signature and biographical information, including stats and school or team affiliation to the extent allowed.

  • Where: website, social channels, email, paid ads on named platforms, and, if it applies, retail point of sale and packaging. If packaging is not in the grant, do not print it.

  • Territory: worldwide, or a list. Online content does not respect borders, so say so.

  • Term plus tail: the deal dates, then the runoff window, in one sentence.

  • Editing: whether the brand may crop, edit, caption, overlay and cut the content into new ads during the term. I want yes. The athlete's side usually wants "no edits that misrepresent," and that is fair.

  • No implied endorsement outside the deal. The athlete's face sells the product in the deal. It does not sell my other lines, a partner's product, a political position or anything else. I write that limit in myself, before anyone asks.

Disclosure does not end with the term

The FTC's guidance for influencers says to disclose when you have any financial, employment, personal or family relationship with a brand, that the disclosure should sit with the endorsement message itself, and that it belongs in the video, not only in the description. Simple words like "ad" or "sponsored" work; vague ones like "collab" do not. I write disclosure into the agreement as the athlete's obligation on their posts and my obligation on mine, and I keep the disclosure on anything still running in the tail. The relationship is still material to the person watching the ad, even after the check clears.

Compliance termination: content comes down faster

The tail is for normal endings. It is not for the day a school, athletic association or conference tells the athlete the deal conflicts with their eligibility. Several states restrict or prohibit high school NIL outright, and rules change often. So my agreements carry a separate compliance clause. If the athlete or a parent notifies me in writing that a governing body has flagged the deal, paid ads stop within a short, stated number of days and I take down any organic post the athlete asks me to. No runoff. No argument. I would rather lose a campaign than be the reason a kid loses a season. For high school athletes that clause runs alongside the parent signature, and on the college side the review process changed after the House settlement. A Congressional Research Service brief on that settlement notes that athletes and institutions must report third-party NIL contracts worth $600 or more to a designated reporting entity, NIL Go, which screens them for a valid business purpose. I covered what that means for a brand in college NIL after the House settlement.

Renewals need a bridge

Most of my deals renew. The renewal always closes late, because it is football and everyone is busy. If the old term ended on the first and the new one is signed on the twentieth, what were my rights on the tenth? I write a bridge: if the parties are in good-faith renewal talks, the existing usage rights continue until the new agreement is signed or either side gives written notice that talks are over. Then the tail starts. Rights should never lapse in the middle of a renewal you both want.

What athletes and parents should ask

I sit on the brand side, so here is the honest version. Ask how long the brand can keep running paid ads after the deal ends, and get a number. Ask whether the brand can put your face on packaging or in a store. Ask whether the brand can edit the content, and what "edit" means. Ask what happens to posts if your school or association flags the deal. Ask whether the brand can use the content to sell something other than the product in the deal. A brand that has answers to those five questions has done this before. A brand that hesitates has not, and you should slow down.

FAQ

What are NIL usage rights?
They are the specific permissions in an athlete agreement that say how, where and for how long the brand can use the athlete's name, image, likeness and the content created during the deal. Without them, the deal ends and the content is in limbo.

Can a brand keep using an athlete's image after the contract ends?
Only if the agreement says so. That is the point of the usage tail: a written runoff period for paid ads and a rule for published organic content. If the contract is silent, the safe assumption is that the permission ended with the term.

Who owns the photos and video from a shoot?
Under federal copyright law, the person who created the work, unless it qualifies as a work made for hire or the rights were assigned in a signed writing. Paying for the shoot does not by itself transfer the copyright.

Do published posts have to come down when the deal ends?
Not unless the contract says they do. I leave organic posts in place indefinitely and take them down on request when there is a compliance reason. Paid ads stop at the end of the tail.

Does the athlete still have to disclose the relationship during the tail?
The FTC's guidance ties disclosure to the material connection, not the calendar. I keep disclosures on anything still running.

These are commercial templates and general information, not legal advice. Buying or reading them does not create an attorney-client relationship, and Ardent Executive Consulting is not a law firm. NIL rules differ by state, athletic association and institution, and they change often; several states restrict or prohibit high school NIL entirely. Have a licensed attorney in your state review any agreement before you use it.

Get the pack: NIL Contract Template Pack — 7 editable .docx agreements, $39. Every agreement carries the usage-tail language above, and the clause library includes the copyright assignment for photographers and videographers.

Sources

Ray Dietrich
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