Methodology & Disclaimer

How your Contend Score is calculated, and what it isn't.

Disclaimer: This is an estimated valuation for informational purposes only, based on self-reported data and a proprietary scoring model. This is NOT a guarantee of earnings, an offer of NIL compensation, or financial/legal advice. Contend NIL is not an agent, advisor, or NIL collective.

The formula

Your Contend Score is a 0-100 number built from three weighted sub-scores:

final_score = (performance × 0.40) + (social × 0.35) + (market × 0.25)

Performance Score — 40%

Your three key stats for your position and sport are compared against floor/average/elite benchmarks for a solid starter at that position (e.g. a quarterback's passing yards and touchdowns are judged against different bars than a linebacker's tackles, and a basketball point guard's assists are judged differently than a center's rebounds). Each stat is normalized to 0-100 and averaged.

Social Score — 35%

A blend of your engagement rate (60% of this sub-score) and your total follower reach across Instagram, TikTok, and X (40%). Engagement is weighted higher because it's a stronger signal of a real, active audience than raw follower count. Follower reach is log-scaled, since growing from 10k to 100k followers matters far more than 1M to 1.1M.

Market Score — 25%

Based on your program's division and conference, a position-specific marketability multiplier (skill/ball-handling positions generally carry more brand value than others), and a class-year adjustment — upperclassmen with a proven track record score slightly higher than true freshmen with less of a body of work.

Verified schools

When you type your school in the calculator, we check it against a real list of NCAA D1 football-affiliated institutions (Power 4, Group of Five, and FCS — 270+ programs). Match one and your division and conference auto-fill and lock, so nobody can pair a real school with a made-up division or conference — and you get a Verified School badge on your profile. Type something not on the list (a D2, D3, or NAIA program, or a handful of D1 basketball-only schools we haven't added yet) and the profile still saves — division and conference just stay self-reported and there's no badge, until we expand the list.

Division & conference tiers

Contend NIL supports every program — D1 (Power 4 and Group of Five), FCS, D2, D3, and NAIA — rather than one conference. There are 100+ real conferences across those divisions, and pretending to have individually-tuned NIL market data for each one would be dishonest. Instead, the four Power 4 conferences (SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Big 12) get individually-tuned base scores since that market data is well-established; every other program's market base score comes from its division. You can still enter your real conference name for display — it just doesn't change the score unless it's one of the four Power 4 conferences.

Estimated NIL value

Your final score maps to a dollar range, not a single number, via a conservative tiered lookup — most non-star college athletes earn modest NIL amounts, and the model is built to reflect that rather than hype unrealistic figures. Only athletes scoring in the top tier see the largest ranges.

Self-reported, account-owned, and opt-in

Contend NIL only generates a valuation when someone submits their own data through the calculator, and only after creating an account — every profile is tied to a real login, so nobody can submit or post as somebody else. We never scrape or generate valuations for real people who haven't used the app. Every submission defaults to private — your result only appears on the public rankings and school pages if you explicitly check the "list me on the public leaderboard" box during calculation. Accounts created with a .edu email address get a College Email Verified badge — that confirms the account signed up with a school email, not a full identity check.

The feed

Athletes with a public profile can post short updates to the feed — a place to advocate for yourself, share your score, and talk directly to brands. Posts are limited to 280 characters and rate limited to keep things from getting spammy. You can delete your own posts at any time, and report anyone else's. Reports are captured but there's no admin review queue yet — that's next. Be respectful; harassment or impersonation isn't something this tool is built to tolerate.

What's covered today

Football, men's basketball, and women's basketball today, open to any school in any division. The scoring model, database schema, and forms are all built generically — adding another sport is a matter of adding new position benchmarks in one config file, not rebuilding the app. See the README for details.