Editorial Policy
About the Standard
How products get evaluated. How affiliate relationships are disclosed. And why the Verdict doesn’t move.
The ESS Performance Database exists because most athlete advice comes from people with a financial stake in which direction you go. Supplement brands that fund their own research. Coaching platforms that pay for placements. Gear companies that sponsor the athletes who review their gear.
The database is built on a different premise: the evaluation happens first, the commercial relationship happens after — and only if the product earned it. This page explains how that works in practice.
How Products Get Into the Database
Editorial Nomination
The ESS team identifies a product based on professional adoption, emerging research, or a pattern of questions from athletes, coaches, and agents in the field. Most database entries start here.
Brand Submission
A company can submit their product for evaluation through the partnership inquiry process. Submission is not purchase. Evaluation is not guaranteed. The evaluation fee covers research time, not the result. A brand that submits a product and receives a 🔴 Skip It verdict has paid for an honest evaluation — that's exactly what they get.
Community Identification
Athletes, coaches, and agents who use the database regularly surface products worth evaluating. Those recommendations go into the evaluation queue.
What a brand cannot purchase:
A database listing
A 🟢 Moves the Needle verdict
Removal of a 🔴 Skip It verdict
A friendlier evaluation in exchange for advertising spend
These rules are not negotiable and they are not case-by-case.
The Evaluation Criteria
Four criteria. Every product. No shortcuts.
Evidence Strength
Is there peer-reviewed research supporting the claimed mechanism — not just the claimed benefit?
HRV science is established. The research on creatine monohydrate is decades deep. Pneumatic compression for circulation and inflammation has legitimate support in the sports medicine literature.
"Proprietary blend." "As seen in clinical trials." "Clinically proven." These phrases mean nothing without the actual study, the sample size, the methodology, and whether the research was funded by the company selling the product.
Products that rely entirely on marketing language without underlying research cannot earn a 🟢 Moves the Needle verdict. Period.
Professional Adoption
Is this tool actively used by athletes, coaches, or athletic training staffs at the highest level of sport — not as a sponsored partnership, but as a genuine part of how they work?
There's a difference between "official recovery partner of the NFL" and "what you see in NFL training rooms." ESS evaluates the latter. Professional adoption is a meaningful signal — not because pros are always right, but because tools that survive the scrutiny of performance staffs whose jobs depend on athlete health tend to hold up better than tools that don't.
Adoption at the pro or elite collegiate level is not a sufficient condition for a 🟢 verdict. It's one of four. But its absence is a flag.
Value for Serious Amateurs
At the price point, the subscription model, and the commitment required — does this genuinely serve athletes who aren't on a professional roster with a dedicated training staff?
A tool that works only inside the infrastructure of a D1 program or a professional team — with the physiologists, the data analysts, the training rooms, and the recovery protocols that come with it — gets that noted explicitly. Athletes buying this without that support system deserve to know what they're actually getting.
Cost-to-value is evaluated against the full picture: upfront cost, subscription fees, time investment, and realistic outcomes for a serious amateur with limited staff support.
Honest Limitations
What are the specific cases where this product doesn't work, doesn't apply, or isn't worth it?
Every evaluation in the database identifies who this is wrong for, not just who it's right for. The athletes who shouldn't buy WHOOP are as important to identify as the athletes who should. The supplement that works when diet is lacking but adds nothing when nutrition is dialed in needs to say that — not bury it.
A product that works for everyone isn't evaluated. It's advertised.
The Verdict System
Three verdicts. One per product. No partial credit.
🟢 Moves the Needle
The evidence is real. The professional adoption is genuine. The cost-to-value ratio holds for serious athletes without a professional support staff. The limitations are acknowledged and manageable for the target athlete. Buy this. The evaluation earned it.
🟡 Situational
The product works — but only in specific circumstances. The wrong athlete type, the wrong budget, the wrong training volume, or the wrong point in a career makes this the wrong choice. The evaluation explains exactly when it applies and when it doesn't. Not a bad product. The wrong product for the wrong person is a bad purchase.
🔴 Skip It
The evidence doesn't support the marketing. The professional adoption is paid, not genuine. The cost-to-value ratio fails the serious amateur. The claimed mechanism doesn't hold up to the research available. Save your money. There are better options in the same category.
One verdict per product, always. No partial verdicts. No "we'll update this when more research comes in." If the evidence isn't strong enough to assign a clear verdict, the evaluation isn't published until it is.
How Affiliate Relationships Work
Some links in The ESS Performance Database are affiliate links. When you purchase through an affiliate link, ESS earns a commission at no additional cost to you.
How it’s disclosed
On the product card for every product with an affiliate link, labeled "Affiliate link"
In the disclosure banner at the top of every database page
In the full affiliate disclosure policy
On this page
The Rule
Affiliate relationships are approved only for products that would be in the database regardless of the commission. If the commission disappeared tomorrow, the evaluation would not change.
Invert that: if removing the affiliate link would change the recommendation — if the product is in the database because the commission exists, not because the evaluation earned it — the product doesn’t belong in the database. That test is applied to every affiliate relationship in the database. It is the only test that matters.
Why the Verdict Never Changes for Sponsors
A 🔴 product that sponsors The ESS Insider is still a 🔴 product.
Brands that sponsor The ESS Insider get a clearly labeled placement in one weekly issue, written in the ESS voice, disclosed as a sponsorship. That’s the commercial arrangement. It exists separately from the editorial layer — The Performance Database — in the same way a newspaper’s advertising department exists separately from its newsroom.
A brand that sponsors three consecutive issues of The Insider does not get a friendlier database evaluation. A brand that submits an evaluation fee does not get a guaranteed 🟢. A brand that pulls its advertising because it received a 🔴 does not get the evaluation reconsidered.
The database is only valuable if athletes can trust it. An athlete who buys a recovery device based on a 🟢 verdict and finds out that verdict was influenced by the brand’s advertising relationship doesn’t just return the product — they stop trusting the database. Every evaluation that follows loses its value.
The editorial independence isn’t a principle ESS holds when it’s convenient. It’s what the entire business is built on. Compromising it once compromises everything.
Who Is Behind ESS
Elite Sports Solutions was built by Jack Tabb III — D1 athlete at the University of North Carolina, NFL undrafted free agent with the New Orleans Saints, college football coach at the University of North Texas and Michigan State, NFLPA-certified contract advisor at JB Sports / nfladvisor.com, and venture capital investor.
That background is the evaluation filter. When the database assesses a recovery device, it’s drawing on years of experience as an athlete who trained under those conditions and a coach who watched how athlete bodies respond across a full season. When it evaluates an NIL platform, it’s approaching it the way an agent approaches it — what’s the deal quality, what’s the compliance risk, what does this actually do for a player’s leverage?
Most product recommendation platforms are built by people who read about sport from the outside. ESS is built by someone who has operated inside every room where these decisions get made.
Legal & Compliance
ESS is an independent editorial brand. It is not affiliated with the NFLPA, the NFL, or any sports league or governing body. The NFLPA certification referenced on this site refers specifically to Jack Tabb III’s personal certification as a contract advisor — not any institutional endorsement of ESS by the NFLPA. Affiliate disclosures, product relationships, and partnership arrangements are governed by FTC guidelines and disclosed on relevant pages. See the full affiliate disclosure policy.
Questions, Submissions & Corrections
To submit a product for evaluation
Use the partnership inquiry form or email info@elitesportssolutions.com with the subject line "Product Evaluation Submission." Include the product name, the category, and any research or professional adoption data you want considered.
Partnership inquiry →To flag an error in an evaluation
Email info@elitesportssolutions.com with "Evaluation Correction" in the subject. Include the specific claim you believe is incorrect and the source you'd like considered. Corrections that hold up get published with an update note on the relevant page.
To ask about editorial policy
Email info@elitesportssolutions.com. We respond to genuine editorial questions directly.
To ask about advertising or sponsorship
Start at the For Brands page. The commercial and editorial processes are separate. Sponsorship inquiries do not affect the evaluation queue.
For Brands →See the Standard in Practice.
Every product in The Performance Database has been evaluated against the criteria on this page. Browse by category and see the Verdicts for yourself.