NIL and the Canadian NCAA Athlete: What Every Athlete, Agent, and Advisor Needs to Know

The bottom line up front: A Canadian athlete who signs an NIL contract without experienced legal counsel reviewing it first is taking a risk that goes well beyond losing a deal. They could be jeopardizing their visa status, their eligibility, and their career. The same is true for the agents who advise them. An agent who facilitates a non-compliant NIL arrangement on behalf of a Canadian athlete on an F-1 visa faces professional consequences and potential liability of their own. The NIL opportunity in U.S. college sports is real and growing. So is the legal complexity. Getting proper legal advice before signing anything is not optional- it is the starting point.

1. The Opportunity — and the Problem

Name, Image, and Likeness (“NIL”) has transformed college athletics in the United States. Since the NCAA reversed decades of policy in July 2021, student-athletes can monetize their personal brands through endorsements, merchandise, licensing, and more. The 2025 House v. NCAA settlement went further still: Division I schools can now directly share up to $20.5 million annually with their athletes. For elite recruits, NIL packages have become a core part of the pitch.

The scale of this is not hypothetical. When Gavin McKenna, the consensus 2026 first overall NHL Draft pick, chose Penn State over remaining in the Western Hockey League with the Medicine Hat Tigers, he reportedly received a NIL package of approximately $700,000.00 (a figure approaching NHL entry-level contract value).

But for Canadians on U.S. student visas, the path to that money is not straightforward. U.S. immigration law, which governs what an F-1 visa holder can and cannot earn, has not kept pace with the NIL revolution. The gap between what the NCAA permits and what immigration law allows creates serious risk for any Canadian athlete who signs a contract without understanding the constraints. This article explains what those constraints are, what strategies exist to work within them, and where the real grey areas lie.

2. The F-1 Visa Constraint

Most Canadian student-athletes at U.S. NCAA schools hold F-1 student visas. The F-1 is designed for academic study, not employment, and it generally prohibits off-campus work. The unresolved question is whether NIL compensation constitutes “work” under U.S. immigration law. Neither U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services nor Immigration and Customs Enforcement has issued guidance on this. That regulatory silence places the compliance risk entirely on the athlete.

The consequences of getting it wrong are serious: visa revocation, deportation, and re-entry bans. An athlete who earns active NIL income on U.S. soil without proper legal structuring is not protected by the fact that others are doing the same thing.

3. What Canadian Athletes Can Legitimately Earn

Within the F-1 framework, real income opportunities exist. They require proper structuring and proper legal advice, but they are not theoretical. Several prominent Canadian athletes have used these strategies to good effect.

Passive Income

Passive income, royalties from licensing a player’s name, image, or likeness without requiring active services on U.S. soil, appears the most legally defensible NIL income stream under F-1 rules. The key distinction is that a genuine royalty is not “employment.”

Jersey and merchandise sales

Licensing an athlete’s name and number for merchandise sold through a campus store, with royalties per sale, is the most established form. Basketball star (and Canadian), Zach Edey, did this successfully while at Purdue University, by some accounts, earning approximately $800,000 through passive income channels.

Video game and digital licensing

Licensing a player’s likeness for use in video games, digital trading cards, and similar products is another recognized passive income stream. Edey also signed a deal with Topps through this kind of arrangement. As EA Sports and others have returned to featuring college athletes, this category has grown meaningfully.

Pre-signed memorabilia

Items signed by the athlete in Canada and then sold or distributed appear to not carry the same risk as an in-person autograph signing event on U.S. soil. Structuring memorabilia arrangements around Canadian visits is a straightforward way to capture this income compliantly.

NIL Deals with Canadian Companies, Fulfilled in Canada

The most practical strategy for active NIL income, endorsements, appearances, promotional content, is to contract with Canadian companies and fulfill all obligations while physically present in Canada.

Aaliyah Edwards, the UConn women’s basketball star from Kingston, Ontario who was selected fifth overall in the 2024 WNBA Draft, signed a deal with Adidas Canada, not Adidas USA, while completing her NCAA career. Promotional work was fulfilled during visits home to Canada. Her approach has become the most widely cited model for Canadian athletes in this situation: contract with a Canadian entity, do the work in Canada, and document it carefully.

4. The Grey Areas: Where Legal Advice Is Not Optional

The passive/active and in-Canada/in-U.S. distinctions provide a framework, but they leave significant real-world scenarios genuinely unresolved. Every one of the following situations requires legal analysis before an athlete proceeds.

Virtual appearances while physically in the United States

A brand wants a Zoom call, a virtual Q&A, etcetera. The athlete is on campus. The brand is Canadian. The contract is with a Canadian entity. Does participating from U.S. soil constitute U.S.-based employment? There is no definitive answer. U.S. immigration authorities focus on where the work is performed, not where the money flows from. The defensible approach is to defer all virtual promotional obligations to periods when the athlete is physically in Canada. This requires advance planning and careful legal contract review.

Social media content created in the U.S.

If an athlete creates sponsored content while on campus, takes a photo, records a video, writes a promotional caption, for a Canadian sponsor, the work is arguably performed in the U.S. regardless of where it is published. A pattern of U.S.-based sponsored content for Canadian brands is difficult to defend. The solution is the same: defer content creation obligations to Canadian visits, and ensure the contract specifies this. A lawyer reviewing the contract before signing is what makes this enforceable.

School revenue-sharing payments

The House settlement allows schools to directly share up to $20.5 million annually with athletes. For Canadians on F-1 visas, these payments are legally unresolved. Immigration lawyers disagree about whether they are passive royalties, potentially permissible, or compensation for performing athletic services in the U.S., which is not. Some institutions have submitted letters to visa offices disclosing these payments without receiving objection. But absence of objection is not regulatory approval. Individual legal analysis is required.

Passive contracts with embedded active obligations

A contract that appears to be a passive licensing arrangement may contain clauses requiring the athlete to perform active services, promotional posts from any location, attendance at U.S.-based events, or content creation on demand. Those embedded obligations create F-1 risk regardless of how the contract is labelled. This is precisely the kind of issue that experienced counsel identifies in contract review. It is easy to miss and expensive to fix after the fact.

5. Tax: The Obligation That Surprises People Later

NIL income earned by Canadian student-athletes gives rise to cross-border tax obligations that are consistently underestimated. Canada taxes its residents on worldwide income. A Canadian athlete on an F-1 visa who remains a Canadian tax resident is potentially liable to report and pay Canadian tax on NIL income regardless of where it is earned. U.S. withholding tax may also apply to certain U.S.-source royalty income. The Canada-U.S. tax treaty provides relief in many circumstances, but its application to NIL income is not settled.

One practical cost that athletes and agents frequently overlook is the expense of retaining U.S.-qualified accountants to prepare and file the required U.S. tax returns. Cross-border tax compliance is a specialized area, and the fees for qualified professionals who can properly handle both a Canadian and a U.S. filing can be substantial, often running into the thousands of dollars annually. For an athlete earning relatively modest passive NIL income, such as a few thousand dollars in jersey sale royalties, the cost of proper tax compliance can approach or even exceed the income itself. This is not a reason to avoid NIL income, but it is a reason to plan carefully. Athletes and agents who do not account for these compliance costs when evaluating a NIL arrangement may find that the net return is far lower than anticipated.

Tax liability and compliance costs that are not planned for from the outset can surface as a significant surprise. A cross-border tax specialist should be consulted before any NIL income is earned, and the cost of that advice should be factored into the economics of any deal being considered.

6.  Getting Legal Counsel: What It Should Cover

Legal counsel for a Canadian athlete’s NIL arrangements should address three areas simultaneously. First, immigration: assessing visa status, structuring active obligations around Canadian presence windows, and evaluating P-1A eligibility. Second, contract review: reading every deliverable clause, identifying embedded active obligations, ensuring compliant structuring, and protecting the athlete’s interests in the deal itself. Third, cross-border tax: identifying reporting obligations in both Canada and the U.S. from the outset so there are no surprises.

Agents have their own interests to protect here as well. An agent who facilitates an NIL contract that later creates visa problems for their client faces professional consequences and potential liability. Retaining counsel to review NIL arrangements is not just a service to the athlete — it is professional due diligence for anyone in the business of representing athletes.

The athletes who have succeeded in this space , but did so because the right legal groundwork was laid before any contract was signed. That is the standard every Canadian NCAA athlete and their advisors should be working toward.

About Keith Law

Keith Law advises agents, agencies, and coaches on sports contracts, NIL structuring, and cross-border representation matters. If you are working with a Canadian athlete navigating the NCAA NIL landscape, contact us before the contract is on the table.
info@keithlaw.ca