NIL Has Changed the Security Conversation 

Security should enable NIL, not restrict it

The pressure behind collegiate athletics 

College athletics has changed dramatically… and fast. 

The rise of NIL (Name, Image and Likeness) has created new commercial opportunities for student-athletes, new relationships between brands and athletic departments, and a much more complex environment around games, training facilities, media days, donor events, recruiting visits, and team operations. 

NIL, sports betting, expanded media coverage, bigger broadcast demands, premium hospitality, booster and donor expectations, and increased public attention have all changed the value of access. 

This is no longer just about who gets a sideline pass on game day but who can move through the wider athletic environment, who approved that access, what they’reallowed to do, and whether that access should still be active. 

That comes with added pressure. 

Boosters, donors, collectives and commercial partners play an important role in the growth of college athletics. Their support can help fund facilities, athlete opportunities, program development and the wider student-athlete experience. They’re often deeply invested in the success of the program, and their involvement is valuable. 

However, that value can also create operational pressure. When influential supporters, partners or guests request access, teams may feel pressure to say yes quickly, even when the request falls outside normal processes. That might mean issuing a pass at short notice, extending access beyond the original purpose, allowing someone into a restricted area, or making an exception because of who they are rather than what they need to do. 

That’s where policy can start to erode and operational control becomes harder to maintain. 

NIL has widened the circle of access 

For a long time, credentialing in college sports was treated as a fairly straightforward game-day process. You worked out who needed access, printed the right pass, handed it out and trusted that the credential would do its job but that world has changed. 

The NIL era has widened the circle of people and organizations interacting with athletes and athletic programs. Agents, brand partners, production crews, social media teams, collectives, photographers, sponsors, donors, boosters, consultants and external guests may all have legitimate reasons to be around a program. 

All these groups are essential to the commercial future of college athletics but the challenge is that access can become informal. 

Requests can come through relationships, pressure, urgency or good intentions. A favor is granted, a pass is issued, a guest is waved through. An exception is made once, then expected again. Over time, informal access becomes normal, and it becomes much harder for security, operations and campus police teams to maintainconsistent control. 

In the NIL era, these small access decisions can carry bigger consequences. 

Locker rooms, sidelines, tunnels, training areas, media zones and field-level spaces are not just operational areas. They’re environments where reputation, privacy, commercial interests, athlete welfare and security all overlap. 

Each space requires different rules, different approvals and different levels of control. 

That’s why credentialing has become part of the wider security and public safety operation. It helps answer a simple but important question: can you clearly see and control who has access to your athletic environment? 

For many colleges, the answer is still harder than it should be. 

Access may still be managed through spreadsheets, emails, printed lists, manual approvals, temporary badges or disconnected access control systems. For example, one department may know a person has been approved for a brand shoot, but another may not, or a vendor, donor guest or partner may no longer need access, but their permission may remain active. 

This creates risk and security gaps. 

NIL access is often temporary, specific and fast-moving 

One of the biggest challenges with NIL is that access is often highly specific. 

For example; a content crew may need access to one facility for a two-hour commercial shoot, or a collective representative may be invited to a specific event or facility tour but not require ongoing access across the athletic department. 

That’s very different from traditional game-day credentialing. 

NIL activity can happen on non-game days, across different facilities and with people who may not be part of the usual athletics or operations structure. Sometimes, access may be needed quickly, but it still needs to be appropriate, approved, time-bound and visible to the teams responsible for safety and security. 

Without a clear system in place, temporary access can become open-ended access and a one-off approval can become an assumed permission.  

The new NIL era of commercial opportunity can create avoidable operational risk and that’s the pressure colleges are now trying to manage. 

NIL has made security part of the recruiting experience 

Recruiting has also become part of the NIL security conversation. 

Top athletic programs are often competing for the same recruits, and student-athletes and their families are looking at far more than the team, coaching staff or facilities. They’re evaluating the full environment around the program: how professional it feels, how well it is run, how athletes are supported, and whether the university can protect the spaces where they train, recover, compete and build their profile. 

In a competitive NIL environment, operational and security issues are much more visible today and can quickly become part of the public conversation. 

In that context, operational control becomes part of the student-athlete experience. 

A prospective student-athlete and their family may tour multiple athletic facilities during an official visit. They may move through practice areas, performance centers, recovery spaces, athlete dining, content studios, academic support areas and hospitality spaces.  

The aim is to ensure they have a smooth and welcoming experience, but that doesn’t mean every space should be open to every visitor. Locker rooms, team meetings, athlete-only areas, sports medicine spaces and restricted operational areas still need clear boundaries. 

Having strong operational control enables ease of movement for those with the right credentials and access. For recruits and their families, knowing that an athletic department understands who is on site, why they are there and where they are allowed to go can reinforce a sense of care, professionalism and trust.   

The same systems that help protect current student-athletes can also help create a more controlled and confident recruiting experience for future ones. 

Moving beyond static credentials 

Credentialing should not end when the pass is printed. Visibility matters after access is granted. 

While a donor, sponsor, collective representative or brand partner may have a legitimate reason to be on site, their access should still be approved, time-bound, role-specific and visible to the teams responsible for safety and operations. 

Security teams and event-day personnel shouldn’t have to make judgment calls at a gate based on incomplete information. They need clear, real-time answers. 

• Is this person approved? 
• Is the credential valid now? 
• Are they in the right location? 
• Has anything changed since the pass was issued? 
• Should this access still be active? 

But colleges need a way to protect important relationships while still applying consistent security standards. 

Gaining operational control through clear credentialing workflows helps remove the awkwardness from those decisions because the system becomes the security standard, not the individual at the gate.  

That protects the relationship as much as it protects the facility, the student-athlete, supporters and staff. 

Modern credentialing helps make access easier to manage, easier to justify and easier to revoke when circumstances change. 

Athletic departments need a way to support new opportunities without creating unnecessary risk, confusion or operational pressure. That means moving beyond static credentials and treating credentialing as a system of control. 

Modern credentialing: gaining control through a single source of truth 

A modern credentialing strategy gives colleges a single source of truth for every person who needs access across the athletic environment. 

It connects identity, role, permissions, approvals, time windows and access rights into one operational view. Instead of simply issuing a badge, you can understand who someone is, who approved them, what they are allowed to do, where they can go and when that access should expire. 

This is particularly valuable in NIL-related activity because access can be highly specific. For example; 

• a donor may be invited to one event but should not have ongoing access across the venue 
• a brand partner may be approved for a hospitality event, but not athlete-only areas,  
• a photographer may be cleared for a media session but not training spaces. 
• content crew may only need access to one facility for a two-hour shoot.  

With the right credentialing workflow, these distinctions can be managed clearly and consistently. 

Security should enable NIL, not restrict it 

NIL has changed who interacts with college sports and that’s changed the pace, volume and commercial value of those interactions. 

The more commercial activity grows around college athletics, the more important it becomes to have a trusted system behind it. 

Modern credentialing supports the new reality of college athletics by helping teams manage identity, access and permissions with confidence across game days, non-event days and everything in between. 

In the NIL era, protecting the program isn’t just about securing the stadium, it’s about knowing who is connected to the athletic environment, why they’re there, and whether they should have access, every time. 

Security, credentialing and access management are now part of the same strategy. 

Athletic departments shouldn’t have to choose between embracing new NIL opportunities and maintaining operational control. The right processes should allow them to do both. 

For more information on how modern credentialing and Accredit Solutions can help deliver greater visibility, operational control and security in this evolving NIL era, visit:https://www.accredit-solutions.com/get-in-touch/