Kendrick Perkins’ Shady New Company Raising Red Flags

Kendrick Perkins came under fire Thursday, but this time it isn’t for the abhorrent takes he’s spewing all over ESPN.

It’s for the shady NIL company he founded.

ESPN’s Dan Murphy published a story about a new company that is co-founded by Perkins called Nilly, which is offering college athletes upfront cash in exchange for a portion of their name, image and likeness deals.

Nilly offers athletes upfront payments that could be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, according to Perkins and his co-founder Chris Ricciardi, while receiving exclusive rights to use or sell the athlete’s name, image and likeness for up to seven years — siphoning off between 10% and 50% of the player’s NIL earnings during that time period. If you’ve ever driven by a strip mall with a sign that says “All Checks Cashed,” you might know why red flags are being raised.

Murphy’s story paints a pretty rough picture.

ESPN obtained a copy of one Nilly contract that lays out a $50,000 payment to a high school senior in exchange for the exclusive rights to sell his name, image and likeness for seven years. In that contract, Nilly and its investors will receive a 25% cut of the player’s NIL earnings for the length of the contract, or until Nilly earns a total of $125,000 (2½ times its initial investment), whichever comes first. Ricciardi said the percentage of NIL money that Nilly takes from an athlete can be as high as 50%, and a spokesperson said Nilly’s share can be as low as 10%.

… Consumer finance experts who reviewed the contract obtained by ESPN said the one-sided relationship between the player and Nilly could lead a judge to determine that the arrangement more closely resembles a loan than a licensing agreement if challenged in court.

NIL, for the uninitiated, is an extremely volatile concept that hasn’t quite had the kinks worked out. Jaden Rashada, for instance, was a former top college football prospect who filed a lawsuit against the University of Florida football program, including head coach Billy Napier, because of a failed name, image, and likeness deal. He’s since spent time at Arizona State and Georgia. It’s not some perfect system, and the company being backed by Perkins sure does look like one that is trying to prey on young athletes.

Gross.