Max Rusakov
Co-Founder & CEO, RevU
NIL market analyst · MS in Management, SMU
Max leads operations and partnerships at RevU and publishes the NIL Sideline Report. He works daily with the NIL market — deal structures, state statutes, and the NCAA/House settlement framework — and writes RevU's market- and regulation-focused coverage.
- Co-Founder & CEO of RevU
- Publisher of the NIL Sideline Report, covering the college-athlete NIL market
- MS in Management, Southern Methodist University
- Focus areas: NIL deal structures, state NIL statutes, NCAA/House settlement framework
Posts by Max Rusakov
How to read your NIL contract: a 10-point checklist
Most NIL contracts hide their teeth in the boilerplate, not the headline number. This checklist walks athletes and their representatives through the 10 questions that have to be answered before a signature lands on the page — with the exact language to look for and the specific traps RevU sees in every batch of contracts we analyze.
Read postNIL contract red flags: 8 patterns we see in AI analysis
Across the NIL contracts RevU's engine has classified, the same eight patterns show up over and over — and each one costs athletes money or freedom in a way they typically do not notice until it is too late. This is a field guide to the eight, with the exact language to look for and what to push back on.
Read postHow NCAA NIL rules changed in 2026 (and what it means for contracts)
The 2025–2026 NIL regulatory year was the most consequential since July 2021. House v. NCAA went final, the NCAA stood up NIL Go through Deloitte, schools became allowed to pay athletes directly, and the rules around what counts as a "valid business purpose" tightened. Here is what changed, with citations, and how each shift now shows up inside the contracts athletes actually sign.
Read postMorality clauses in NIL contracts: what athletes should know
The morality clause is the single most-litigated, least-understood provision in NIL contracts. It is also the clause that creates the largest gap between what athletes think they are signing and what brands can actually do. This post explains the 5-tier M0–M5 morality ladder, what triggers each tier, the clawback risk attached, and what to negotiate.
Read postDisclosure requirements by state: a 50-state NIL compliance map
Most NIL athletes are subject to overlapping disclosure regimes: a state statute, a school policy, the NCAA NIL Go clearinghouse, and the FTC's social-media endorsement rules. This post is the structured map of how state laws differ and where the typical disclosure gaps appear in the contracts we analyze.
Read postWhy RevU uses the CUAD taxonomy (and what that means for your contract)
Most contract-analysis products invent their own clause categories — categories no one can audit, citing accuracy numbers no one can verify. RevU is built on the CUAD taxonomy, a 41-class academic standard developed at Stanford. This post explains what CUAD is, why we chose it, what it means for athletes reading their contracts, and what we added on top of it.
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