NIL Go: Policing College Athletes' Endorsement Deals

Timeline

1. Jun 6, 2025The court grants final approval of the House settlement.
2. Jun 11, 2025NIL Go launches.
3. Jul 2025The CSC says collectives will be treated like other businesses if deals meet the valid-business-purpose test.
4. Sep 4–5, 2025The first NIL Go report is released, then corrected for a clerical error.
5. Dec 3, 2025Eight state attorneys general, led by Tennessee, object to the CSC's University Participant Agreement.
6. Jan–Feb 2026The CSC's first publicly known inquiry, into unreported NIL deals at LSU, closes without discipline.
7. Apr 2026Class counsel ask the court to bar treating multimedia rights companies and school sponsors as associated entities.
8. May 11, 2026An arbitrator upholds the CSC's rejection of Playfly deals with 18 Nebraska players.
9. Jun 25, 2026Magistrate Judge Cousins rules that such companies can be associated entities.
10. Aug 4, 2026Judge Wilken upholds the ruling.
11. Sep 9, 2026The CSC reports 46,478 deals cleared through August 31, 2026.
12. Oct 8, 2026CBS Sports reports longer-term CSC cap-evasion investigations of five to ten Power Four programs.

The ethical issues

• Distinguishing legitimate endorsements from disguised pay.
• Athletes' earning freedom versus competitive balance.
• Transparency and accuracy of a private enforcement body.
• Due process for athletes whose deals are rejected.
• Who sets fair market value for an athlete's name.

Stakeholders

Stakeholder	Interests & obligations
College athletes	Earning freely and quickly from their NIL.
Booster collectives	Continuing to fund athletes.
Schools and conferences	Competitive balance under the cap.
The CSC and Deloitte	Credible, efficient enforcement.
Businesses	Clear rules for deals.

The case

For years the NCAA banned college athletes from being paid. Then, in a few years, it moved from allowing name, image and likeness (NIL) deals to settling the House v. NCAA antitrust case, which let schools pay athletes directly. Each step raised the same problem: how to stop boosters from using “endorsements” to buy players. The answer in the settlement era is the College Sports Commission (CSC) and its clearinghouse, NIL Go.^[1][2]

Background

The House settlement received final court approval on June 6, 2025. It changed NCAA rules to allow third-party NIL payments, subject to “specially negotiated limitations,” and let schools share revenue with athletes up to a cap, $20.5 million per school for 2025–26.^[1] The cap does not bar athletes from earning more through outside NIL deals.^[1] That creates the incentive the system must police: a booster could route money through a nominal “endorsement” to get around the cap.

The NCAA and the major conferences, using rulemaking authority under the settlement, set up the CSC as a clearinghouse to review deals worth $600 or more and “clear” or “not clear” them. Athletes whose deals are rejected may demand arbitration.^[1] NIL Go, built with Deloitte, launched on June 11, 2025, and athletes must submit deals within five business days for a “fair-market-value evaluation.”^[2] CSC CEO Bryan Seeley said in July 2025: “Pay-for-play will not be permitted, and every NIL deal done with a student-athlete must be a legitimate NIL deal, not pay-for-play in disguise.”^[2]

The rules and governance

Associated entities. The heaviest scrutiny applies to deals with “associated entities.” The definition, agreed by the settling parties, includes an entity “closely affiliated with an NCAA member school for the purpose of promoting the school’s athletics program or its student-athlete,” or one that “otherwise has assisted in the recruitment or retention” of athletes.^[7] Deals with associated entities must have a valid business purpose, at rates and terms commensurate with comparable deals.^[1][7] The CSC uses a “Range of Compensation” algorithm based on fair-market-value principles.^[1]

Collectives. After first saying booster collectives could not pay athletes directly, the CSC said in late July 2025 it would treat them like other businesses, provided deals met the valid-business-purpose requirement.^[2]

The first year

The CSC’s first report, released September 4, 2025, was corrected the next day for a “clerical error”: of 8,359 deals entered, worth $79.8 million, 6,090 had been cleared, worth $35.42 million, and 332 had not.^[2][3] Common reasons for denial included delays in providing information, contradictory or misreported deal terms, and failing the valid-business-purpose test.^[3] Seeley said the system was “working as intended.”^[2] Collectives disagreed. The Collective Association said that of 384 deals its members had submitted, only 25 had been approved, 120 rejected and 192 had received no response.^[3] By October 31, 2025, the CSC reported 12,175 deals cleared, worth $87.5 million, and 394 not cleared.^[4]

The tests of 2026

The Nebraska arbitration. Eighteen Nebraska football players challenged the CSC’s rejection of their deals with Playfly Sports Properties, a multimedia rights company. On May 11, 2026, in the CSC’s first arbitration, arbitrator Andrew Strongin upheld the rejection.^[1][6] He found that Playfly was an associated entity and that the deals lacked a valid business purpose. In his words, Playfly was “acquiring NIL as inventory to be warehoused and activated when most advantageous to Playfly,” with no identified sponsor, and the CSC argued this let the university effectively guarantee NIL money to its own athletes as a retention tool.^[1] Sportico noted that the decision sets no precedent, and that the players could ask a court to vacate it, though courts give arbitrators heavy deference.^[7] Seeley said: “a decision we made was challenged and a neutral arbitrator assessed the facts to inform a final decision.”^[7]

The MMR ruling. In April 2026, class counsel Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman asked the court to stop the CSC from treating multimedia rights companies (MMRs) such as Learfield and Playfly, and school sponsors such as apparel companies, as associated entities. They argued that heavier scrutiny was slowing approvals to athletes’ detriment.^[9] On June 25, 2026, U.S. Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins, the settlement’s special master, denied the motion, finding that the agreed definition does not exclude MMRs or sponsors and that status depends on the facts of each relationship.^[8][10] On August 4, Judge Claudia Wilken upheld that ruling, required class counsel to raise complaints about “burdensome” investigations with Cousins first, and granted them access to documents about CSC investigations.^[10]

Enforcement without a contract

The clearinghouse was only half of the CSC’s design. The other half was an enforcement arm that could investigate schools and punish them. In late 2025 the CSC circulated a University Participant Agreement and asked every Power Four school to sign it.^[11] On December 3, 2025, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said he and the chief legal officers of seven other states had written to the CSC and the commissioners of the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC, objecting to “fatal flaws.”^[11] The attorneys general said the agreement would let the CSC strip schools of conference revenue and impose postseason bans if any state, official, athlete or other third party brought litigation “related in any way” to CSC rules or enforcement, “even if the CSC is ultimately found to have violated the law.” It would also require schools to waive jury trials and accept mandatory arbitration, “which many public universities cannot legally do,” and restrict them from advocating for changes in the law or consulting their own attorney general.^[11] “The NCAA showed us that power without accountability cannot be trusted,” Skrmetti said. The attorneys general called for the agreement to be withdrawn.^[11]

Investigations went ahead anyway. In January 2026, the CSC’s head of investigations wrote to LSU about unreported NIL deals. It was the first CSC inquiry to become public. Two weeks later LSU said it had been “resolved with no disciplinary action, and any deals that require submission to NIL Go have been submitted.” The CSC said only that it had contacted “several schools” about investigations into unreported deals.^[12]

By October 2026, CBS Sports reported, citing public records and more than 20 sources, that the CSC was conducting longer-term investigations of five to ten Power Four programs, including College Football Playoff contenders. It had interviewed people on campus, and none of the investigations had been completed.^[13] An August 20, 2026 CSC memo to campus officials, quoted by CBS, said its investigators were “actively conducting multiple, longer-term investigations into potential cap evasion and NIL-related violations by institutions, student-athletes, and certain third parties.”^[13] CBS reported that the participation agreement had never been signed by all 68 Power Four schools and that the CSC had all but abandoned it, leaving it without contractual power to compel cooperation. It also reported that schools often took weeks or months to answer requests for information.^[13] In July 2026, the CSC exempted deals between $600 and $15,000 from fair-market review for athletes with $50,000 or less in associated-entity deals.^[13] Meanwhile, the revenue-sharing cap rose to about $21.5 million for 2026–27, and CBS reported that some football rosters cost $40 million or more, with the balance coming from cleared third-party deals.^[13]

ACC commissioner Jim Phillips told CBS that cooperation between the CSC and the NCAA had improved. But “when you don’t have all of the tools necessary in enforcement, whether the NCAA or the CSC, it still leaves a hole in enforcement.”^[13]

Aftermath

By August 31, 2026, NIL Go had cleared 46,478 deals worth $582.49 million and rejected 2,296 worth $156.93 million. One deal was in arbitration, and more than 48,000 athletes were registered.^[5] The CSC reported acting on more than 200 deals a day in July and August 2026, up from 94 a day in its first year, and resolving 68% within seven days once required information was complete. It acknowledged that many deals labeled “non-associated” likely “belong in the ‘Associated’ column” but are cleared without inquiry when they would comply anyway.^[5] Front Office Sports reported that “schools across the country are going above the revenue-sharing cap by tens of millions of dollars.”^[9] The legal challenge to the system is examined in a separate case on athletes’ lawsuit against the NCAA, the conferences and the CSC.

The core dilemma

NIL Go aims to separate genuine endorsements from disguised pay, protecting the cap and competitive balance. But judging an athlete’s market value is hard, rejected deals cost athletes money, and the system’s early data contained errors. Who should decide whether a deal is legitimate, and how?

Competing values

• Competitive balance vs. athletes’ earning freedom.
• Efficiency vs. due process.
• Uniform national rules vs. market judgment.
• Transparency vs. confidentiality of deals.

Strongest arguments

For NIL Go: without review, boosters could pay unlimited sums disguised as endorsements, undermining the cap. Most deals clear quickly.

Against: the “valid business purpose” test is subjective, collectives face high rejection rates, and a private body is setting limits on athletes’ pay.

On transparency: regular reports help, but errors and limited detail make it hard to judge fairness.

Applying the frameworks

Justice

A justice lens asks whether the system treats athletes and schools consistently, and whether it fairly balances athletes’ interests against competitive balance.

Rights

A rights lens focuses on athletes’ right to profit from their own names and to fair process when deals are rejected.

Utilitarianism

A utilitarian lens weighs the benefits of a stable system against lost earnings and administrative costs.

Walk it through: the Simple Decision Model

1. Spot the issue. You are a CSC reviewer considering a collective’s $50,000 deal. Stakeholders include the athlete, the collective and rival schools. Less visible are athletes in other sports. The codes are the House settlement rules.
2. Gather facts. What services are provided and what are comparable deals? Beware assuming all collective deals are disguised pay.
3. Test options. (a) Clear. (b) Not clear, with reasons. (c) Request more information.
4. Check codes and law. Check settlement terms and state law.
5. Decide and document. Record your reasoning.
6. Communicate and follow up. Explain the decision and the route to arbitration.

What’s settled and what’s contested

• Settled: NIL Go’s launch, its corrected first report and later figures.
• Contested: whether the business-purpose test is fair; whether collectives are treated fairly; whether the system is lawful.

Why this case matters

NIL Go is an experiment in regulating a new labor market in college sports, testing whether a private clearinghouse can be fair, transparent and effective.

See also: Ili and Mirer v. NCAA: Enforcing NIL Limits Against State Law.

Key terms

Commercialization

The process of turning sport into a product and a business enterprise, with profit pressures that can compete with principle.

Institutional accountability

Structures that make a sport organization explain its decisions and face consequences: clear authority, transparency, appeals, independent oversight and enforcement.

Agency

An athlete’s ability to make decisions and act independently about their body, career and voice.

Due process

Fair procedures before a sanction: notice, a chance to respond, an impartial decision-maker and a right of appeal.

Legal but unethical

Law sets out what can be punished; ethics asks what is right. Compliance is a minimum, so an action can be lawful and still wrong.

Definitions from the Ethics Cases glossary.

Discussion questions

1. How should a reviewer decide whether a deal has a 'valid business purpose'?
2. Collectives reported much lower approval rates than the overall figures. What explains the gap, and does it matter?
3. Is NIL Go a reasonable guardrail or a restraint on athletes' earnings?
4. What due-process protections should athletes have when a deal is not cleared?

Sources

1. Final Neutral Arbitration Decision, 18 Student-Athletes on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Football Team v. College Sports Commission, CSC Case No. 2026-002 (May 11, 2026) — College Sports Commission
2. NIL Go clears $35.4 million in debut report — On3
3. College Sports Commission releases first report on NIL deals — FootballScoop
4. NIL Deal Flow Report (data as of Nov. 1, 2025) — College Sports Commission
5. NIL Go Data Report (Sept. 9, 2026) — College Sports Commission
6. College Sports Commission Secures First Arbitration Victory — Cleary Gottlieb
7. Nebraska Football Players Lose NIL Arbitration but Could Now Sue (May 12, 2026) — Sportico
8. NCAA, College Sports Commission Win Ruling on MMRs (Jun. 25, 2026) — Sportico
9. Court Hands NCAA Win in Fight Over NIL Enforcement — Front Office Sports
10. College Sports Commission Scores Win on MMR, NIL Interpretation (Aug. 5, 2026) — Sportico
11. Tennessee Attorney General Leads Multi-State Effort Opposing College Sports Commission Agreement (Dec. 3, 2025) — Office of the Tennessee Attorney General
12. No Disciplinary Action for LSU Following First Publicly-Known Investigation by the College Sports Commission (Feb. 3, 2026) — Athletic Business
13. Multiple Power Four programs face College Sports Commission investigations over alleged NIL cap evasion (Oct. 8, 2026) — CBS Sports