NIL pay comes as 1099 income with nothing withheld, Dynasty's LaPorta says

Matt LaPorta, an executive in residence at Dynasty Financial Partners, said college athletes paid as 1099 contractors have nothing withheld, and the problem lands in April.

The Q&A that produced that answer, published by Wealth Solutions Report, asked four advisors what is most top of mind for professional and collegiate athletes and what makes advising them different from serving other affluent clients. Alongside LaPorta, the participants were Jamel Gordon, a senior wealth advisor at Rose Capital Advisors; Brittany Hartnett, a principal partner and chief growth officer at OpenArc Corporate Advisory; and Ben L. Davidson, an associate vice president and private wealth advisor at Americana Partners.

For college athletes, LaPorta said, the money is not really about investing yet. The spending is social: an 18-year-old in a locker room wants his teammates to like him, so he picks up the bar tab and buys dinner, carrying guilt about making more than the guy next to him. Nobody sits those kids down in advance and warns them about that part, LaPorta said. Then family gets involved, everyone needs something, and the money goes faster than anyone thought it would.

Hartnett said NIL income often means college athletes juggle taxes, budgeting and even LLC formation while balancing school and high-level competition. They are being asked to develop financial skills much earlier than previous generations, she said. For professional athletes, she said the questions shift from how much they can make to how they make it last, and then to what legacy they want to leave behind.

Gordon said the biggest issues are taxes, cash flow and turning a relatively short and unpredictable earning window into lifelong financial independence. Athletes are increasingly aware, he said, that the money they earn today may need to support them and their families for decades after their playing careers end.

The source frames the wider backdrop plainly: short and unpredictable careers can leave athletes needing to stretch early earnings over decades, and alongside taxes and cash flow they face family obligations, pressure to spend and the psychological adjustment to sudden wealth.

Read together, the three college-facing answers point toward arithmetic rather than portfolio construction as the first conversation — what will be owed in April on 1099 income, what is safe to spend before then, and whether an LLC makes sense. That is an inference from the four responses, not a prescription any of them stated.