“Hugh Freeze likens revenue-sharing negotiations to a high-stakes poker game—casting doubt on the reliability of outside NIL deals.”

“Hugh Freeze likens revenue-sharing negotiations to a high-stakes poker game—casting doubt on the reliability of outside NIL deals.”

Hugh Freeze, the Auburn football coach, recently offered a striking analogy when discussing the new environment of revenue-sharing and NIL (name, image, likeness) in college athletics—a comparison that felt more fitting for Las Vegas than the recruiting trail. He suggested that rev-share negotiations are “kind of like poker,” a metaphor loaded with implications about risk, bluffing, incomplete information, and the uncertainty that now permeates recruiting. This analogy encapsulates the balancing act facing coaches like Freeze in a rapidly shifting landscape of college sports economics. It also underlines his wariness of “outside NIL” deals that exist beyond the standard revenue-sharing framework—and where the truth of the deal may remain inscrutable until much later. It’s a vivid image: high school prospects, universities, boosters, third-party collectives, legal settlements and government interventions, all sitting around the table with cards hidden until someone lays them down. What Freeze made clear is that he doesn’t yet see a lot of transparency—few written rev-share offers—and that the unpredictability of outside NIL promises makes trust fragile.

He noted that August 1, 2025, marked a pivotal shift: schools could officially send written rev-share offers, though recruits cannot sign until their designated signing dates. Yet Freeze said he hasn’t heard of many schools actually putting those offers in writing in a detailed, clear manner (On3). That’s where the poker metaphor hits hardest: without written terms, you’re betting blind. You may hear a whisper—“this is going to be your share”—but you don’t know how firm it is, or what’s actually on the table.

In poker, bluffing is as important as the cards you hold. And in this new world of revenue sharing, Freeze worries that some schools might be bluffing—or telling recruits what they want to hear—without firm backing. Outside NIL deals, negotiated by third parties, fall into that murky area. Freeze raised pointed questions about these arrangements: he asked how anyone can tell a high school athlete with a straight face, without deceiving them, what kind of outside NIL deals they might receive, since those deals and their valuations remain unknown to Deloitte’s NIL Go clearinghouse until after the recruit arrives on campus (On3). That uncertainty makes every line read and every promise made feel like another card drawn from an unseen deck.

From Freeze’s perspective, the analogy is meaningful because it underscores how difficult it can be to assess risk and value without full disclosure. In poker, you bet based on flawed information—what you think opponents might have, what their tells suggest, how they’ll respond to pressure. You rarely know their hole cards; similarly, in the NIL world, schools—and recruits—must act on partial information. Freeze acknowledged that Auburn feels ready to compete, thanks to the groundwork laid by their marketing team and athletic director John Cohen, but that even they must navigate with care (On3).

To follow the analogy further, imagine a recruit as a poker player weighing two hands: one from a school offering a straight rev-share deal, the other promising possible outside NIL payoffs. The rev-share hand might be known, even if a bit opaque, but the outside-NIL hand? A potential full house or a dangerous bluff. Without transparency—and until Deloitte assesses fair market value—those outside deals are speculative at best, misleading at worst.

Freeze’s point isn’t just humorous imagery—it’s a critique of opacity in a high-stakes environment. By likening revenue-sharing talks to poker, he’s warning of a recruiting negotiation built not on certainty, but on calculated deception, betting on hope, and pressure to commit without knowing the full value of the hand you’re holding.

Echoing that concern, Pete Nakos of On3 said there’s “more fake cash being thrown around right now than there was four years ago,” and that under-the-table payments are almost certainly still in play (SI). Those shadow transactions, combined with uncertain outside NIL deals, deepen the opacity Freeze warns about. They also put programs like Auburn at a disadvantage: they can’t out-bluff others with hidden promises—they have to stay aboveboard. That constraint means they must rely on preparation, clarity, and marketing rather than smoke-and-mirrors.

Freeze and his staff appear to believe they aren’t bluffers. They’re waiting to see other schools’ cards. They have confidence in their university’s leadership, which they believe is “doing things the right way,” even if that sometimes means losing hands when other programs exaggerate their offer and future value (SI). But they know the table is rigged against transparency, and in poker, knowing when your opponents are bluffing is sometimes more important than the strength of your own hand.

In this analogy, the NCAA’s new rules and the House settlement are like rule changes in a poker tournament—changing the structure of blind bets, revealing elements of the game, shifting what counts as a fair deal. Yet Freeze notes that the clearance system (“NIL Go”) operated by Deloitte, vetting deals above $600, only starts working after a recruit gets on campus, making it ineffective as a safeguard during recruiting negotiations (On3). That’s like rewriting the game rules halfway through—you don’t know what card ranks will count until after the pot is already committed.

What emerges from Freeze’s poker analogy is a broader commentary on the evolving economics of college sports. Schools are scrambling to recruit within a system that encourages flexibility but punishes viscosity. Recruits are being pitched deals they may not understand until far later. Institutions like Auburn that emphasize compliance and transparency feel pressured to remain conservative—but risk being outbid by programs operating in gray areas. It’s a tension between doing things the right way and being competitive in an environment where bluffing can win games—literally and figuratively.

Freeze’s use of the analogy is timely, evocative, and cautionary. It invites us to visualize recruiting as a table where players bend the rules, hide their intentions, and bet on future promises they may never fulfill. It invites stakeholders—recruits, parents, fans, compliance officers—to push for a clearer deck. If NIL and revenue sharing are going to define the future of college athletics, perhaps it’s time to open the cards rather than play blind.

In the end, the poker metaphor underscores the stakes: the outcome of recruiting battles, student-athletes’ futures, institutional reputations, and competitive balance are all on the line. And without full information, each decision is a bet. Coaches like Hugh Freeze are pleading for a fairer game—one in which hands are visible, promises are written, and trust isn’t just a bluff.