scout news

Customer Win

Payment Infrastructure at Scale

SMU partnered with Scout to move athlete payments beyond spreadsheets into one system with centralized approvals, real-time visibility, and a payment experience built for athletes.

by scout team

Volume is up. Compensation models vary by athlete and by program. And the margin for compliance error keeps shrinking.

SMU felt that shift directly. Legacy processes and fragmented systems weren’t built for the economics of today’s college athletics, and the athletic department needed infrastructure that could scale athlete payment distribution, provide full transparency into high-dollar transactions, and hold up to institutional and regulatory scrutiny.

SMU partnered with Scout to bring it into one platform:

  • Scout Command for centralized administrative control
  • Scout Pay for NIL, revenue-share, stipend, and bonus distributions
  • Scout Athlete for payment tracking and tax readiness
  • Scout Per Diem and Scout International for the edge cases most systems miss.
The result: streamlined high-volume payment execution across every program, real-time visibility into spend, stronger compliance and audit readiness, and a best-in-class experience for the athletes actually receiving the money.‍

SMU is now positioned to scale athlete compensation for whatever the next phase of the NIL and revenue-share era looks like. That is the infrastructure question, and more programs will be asking it soon.

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customer win

Old Dominion turns NIL income into tax confidence

Old Dominion is partnering with Scout to turn NIL income into tax confidence, guiding student-athletes through their 2025 tax filings with a digital platform and one-on-one support. The result is more accurate filings, less compliance risk, and stronger athlete trust, in a model any program can replicate.

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