Data and code from: Does beauty pay? An analysis of college athlete name, image, and likeness (NIL) pricing

Recent court decisions allow U.S. college athletes to monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL), rapidly creating a multi-billion-dollar market. Yet the determinants of athletes’ NIL prices remain poorly understood. We estimate a system of price equations using a novel dataset that combines publicly posted NIL prices with athlete characteristics—including perceived attractiveness and trustworthiness—and institutional attributes of their schools. Sport-specific expertise is the primary driver of NIL prices: “Superstar” athletes command substantially higher prices than more “Conventional” peers. Social media following explains price variation for both groups, but the pricing process otherwise diverges sharply. Superstars’ prices increase with athletic ability, whereas Conventional athletes’ prices are unrelated to ability and instead rise with school enrollment and perceived attractiveness. A one standard deviation increase in attractiveness raises Conventional athletes’ NIL prices by about 10 percent, while a comparable increase in trustworthiness lowers prices by roughly 9 percent. Survey evidence indicates higher attractiveness ratings for female athletes and modest assortative preferences. We show that regulatory pricing algorithms omit these factors, causing systematic deviations from market valuations.