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.