Designing a fair and inclusive digital asset-based name-image-likeness marketplace

design-knowledge/nil-marketplace-fair-inclusive-df1

DF1 - Primary Markets

Purchasing collectibles mints NFTs, and on monetary compensation a predetermined, hardcoded portion of the value is distributed as royalties among the associated student-athletes (randomized primar...

design-knowledge/nil-marketplace-fair-inclusive-df2

DF2 - Market Exchanges

Minted NFTs that pay royalties to student-athletes can be traded in secondary markets;

Design Principle

Design Principle3

design-knowledge/nil-marketplace-fair-inclusive-dp1

DP1 - Plausible events (randomized collectible sales)

Enable market-based randomized sales of royalty-paying collectibles so that every student-athlete has a non-zero chance of profiting from their NIL, satisfying the inclusiveness requirement via the...

design-principlefairnessmarketplacenft+2

design-knowledge/nil-marketplace-fair-inclusive-dp2

DP2 - Market royalties (meritocratic allocation)

Allow ex-post, market-driven adjustments to the initial allocation through royalties from secondary-market sales of collectibles, so that student-athletes are rewarded in proportion to relevant dif...

design-principlefairnessmarketplacenft+2

design-knowledge/nil-marketplace-fair-inclusive-dp3

DP3 - Blockchain-based marketplace infrastructure

Use blockchain technology as the foundational infrastructure - with transparent public ledgers and smart contracts - to create a well-functioning NIL collectibles marketplace that satisfies require...

design-principlefairnessmarketplacenft+2

Paper design map

The default semantic design map canonicalizes stored design relationships; Raw links retains the complete technical Markdown-link view.

Design-knowledge map

5 stored concepts / 3 canonical semantic relationships

Concept types

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Publication metadata

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{
  "type": "paper",
  "title": "Designing a fair and inclusive digital asset-based name-image-likeness marketplace",
  "description": "Motivated by fairness and inclusiveness in student-athlete NIL monetization, the paper defines design requirements and three design principles - randomized royalty-paying collectible sales (inclusiveness), market-driven royalties (meritocracy), and blockchain as marketplace infrastructure - realized via NFTs and smart contracts.",
  "resource": "https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dss.2025.114580",
  "authors": "Arthur Carvalho, Liudmila Zavolokina, Suman Bhunia, Gerhard Schwabe",
  "year": 2026,
  "venue": "Decision Support Systems 201 (2026) 114580",
  "methodology": "Design science research; interviews with student-athletes; the inclusive-meritocratic fairness criterion; design features and evaluation.",
  "dsr_grid": true,
  "dsr_solution_space": "Instantiation plus design theory (requirements, principles and features).",
  "tags": [
    "nil-marketplace-fair-inclusive",
    "marketplace",
    "fairness",
    "nft",
    "sports",
    "design-science-research",
    "blockchain"
  ]
}

Research paper

Designing a fair and inclusive digital asset-based name-image-likeness marketplace

PaperOpen source resource ↗

Overview

Publication metadata and narrative from the current library record.

Authors: Arthur Carvalho, Liudmila Zavolokina, Suman Bhunia, Gerhard Schwabe
Year: 2026
Venue: Decision Support Systems 201 (2026) 114580
Methodology: Design science research; interviews with student-athletes; the inclusive-meritocratic fairness criterion; design features and evaluation.

blockchaindesign-science-researchfairnessmarketplacenftnil-marketplace-fair-inclusivesports

Designing a fair and inclusive digital asset-based name-image-likeness marketplace

Summary

Artifact

A blockchain/NFT-based name-image-likeness (NIL) marketplace for student-athletes.

Methodology

Design science research; interviews with student-athletes; the inclusive-meritocratic fairness criterion; design features and evaluation.

Design features

Concrete, technology-specific realizations of the design principles in this artifact:

Design feature DF1: Primary Markets - Purchasing collectibles mints NFTs, and on monetary compensation a predetermined, hardcoded portion of the value is distributed as royalties among the associated student-athletes (randomized primar...
Design feature DF2: Market Exchanges - Minted NFTs that pay royalties to student-athletes can be traded in secondary markets;

Citations

DSR grid

Six dimensions represented in the current paper record.

Problem description

Only a fraction of student-athletes profit from their name, image and likeness (NIL), raising fairness and inclusiveness concerns when sharing a limited amount of financial resources.

Input knowledge

Research process

Design science research: interviews with student-athletes, derivation of requirements, principles and features, and demonstration and evaluation.

Key concepts

Blockchain, design science, fairness, inclusiveness, NIL, NFT.

Solution description

Output knowledge

Three design principles and two design features (with underlying design requirements) satisfying inclusive-meritocratic fairness.

Design knowledge

Directly linked concepts, grouped by their represented design-knowledge category.

Design Feature

Design Feature2

design-knowledge/nil-marketplace-fair-inclusive-df1

DF1 - Primary Markets

design-knowledge/nil-marketplace-fair-inclusive-df2

DF2 - Market Exchanges

Minted NFTs that pay royalties to student-athletes can be traded in secondary markets;

Design Principle

Design Principle3