You don’t have to be an employee to receive taxable income. I get dividends. They’re taxable, but I’m not an employee. In fact, I’m a (infinitesimally small) owner.
The booster could try to claim that the payment to the player is a gift of post-tax funds, and it is therefore taxable to neither the giver nor the recipient
If it were an isolated incident, that might have worked a few years ago. It will no longer.
The IRS already called stinkin’ hot garbage on aTm’s attempted end run. “The Service†would do the same thing in this variation. And there is zero public sentiment to allow this sort of scam.
Long story short, that dog won’t hunt.