The College Sports Commission has reported that its infrastructure is struggling under a spike in NIL agreements tied to colleges and universities, such as booster collectives, media partners and apparel.
According to CBS Sports, the CSC believes the spike is related to the opening of the transfer portal in January. As student-athletes, particularly football players, moved between programs, a wave of newly negotiated deals hit the CSC’s systems.
"I don't think the system was designed with this amount of associated deals in mind," said Bryan Seeley, CEO of the College Sports Commission.
Seeley insists that the nature of the deals, not staffing shortages, is to blame for the longer review times, but he could not provide specific data to quantify the longer timelines.
An estimated 63% of all reported NIL deals in January and February involved school-related entities, accounting for 78% of total NIL dollar value. The CSC reported that NIL deals tied into school-related entities “require greater scrutiny” and “contribute to longer review times” in the clearinghouse.
CBS Sports reported that 3,704 NIL deals valued at $39.29 million were cleared from the CSC in January and February, that is nearly an eighth of the total NIL volume processed by the CSC since its inception. Only 187 deals were rejected.
Related: College Sports Commission ‘Serious Concerns’ With Spiraling Contracts, Transfer Portal
"I think it's fair to say that the NIL market in college athletics is not a normal organic market," Seeley said. "It's a market in which schools are manufacturing NIL for their student athletes."
Most NIL deals pass through the CSC Clearinghouse within 24 hours, with more complicated agreements requiring up to seven days to be approved or denied. However, some legal experts — Winston & Straw, who represented athletes in the House settlement, among them — have raised concerns that the CSC review timelines could impact a team’s recruiting and retention prospects.
