House plaintiff attorneys have reached a deal with the power conferences and NCAA officials that will alter the new enforcement arm, the College Sports Commission (CSC), relating to how NIL collectives can pay athletes, according to Yahoo! Sports.
House plaintiff co-counsel Jeffrey Kessler told On3 that he has “nothing to announce yet.” Multiple NIL collectives told On3 in the last week that they were actively speaking with lawyers about bringing suits forward against CSC and the NIL clearinghouse if changes were not made.
“Conversations with class counsel remain ongoing,” a CSC spokesperson told On3. “A formal statement will be issued when the issue has been resolved.”
As part of the agreement, the College Sports Commission is expected to treat collectives or any “school-associated entity” in a similar fashion as other businesses when determining the legitimacy of third-party NIL deals submitted to the CSC’s NIL Go clearinghouse, according to Yahoo.
The CSC recently laid out a firm approach to how it plans to handle booster-funded NIL collective deals. The key goal behind the House v. NCAA settlement was to shift the flow of dollars to athletes from collectives to institutions. Kessler and his other co-counsel, Steve Berman, wrote a letter to the power conferences and NCAA officials earlier this month that the NCAA and conferences “retract” the guidance.
“Lawsuits are about to come,” a source previously told On3 if guidance was not altered. “If they had not come out and said something on Friday, we probably would have already filed something.”
On3 reported this month that the NIL clearinghouse is facing lengthy delays. An SEC NIL collective told On3 that it submitted a deal 14 days ago with multiple deliverables for an event. With the clearinghouse’s delay, the event that the football player was supposed to execute has since passed. One source told On3 that a booster-driven Big Ten collective deal has been waiting 19 days for the clearinghouse’s response on a six-figure deal.
“Let me be clear – college athletics is not broken, but it is strained,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said last week.
Multiple NIL collectives recently told On3 that head coaches were asking questions about how payments will get to athletes with NIL clearinghouse delays. Athletes are required to submit deals for a “fair‑market‑value evaluation” within five business days of execution. But delays have led to booster-backed collectives waiting over 20 days, in some instances.
Sources speculated that some schools will start paying players under the table – a fear many have openly discussed in recent months as the House settlement was finalized.
“We were already talking to an attorney,” an NIL collective leader said. “And then Friday, Kessler and Berman came out and reprimanded the NCAA and CSC about the guidance. Who are they to determine what a valid business purpose is? If they really want this thing to work, they need to approve more than they deny. They need to give everybody some grace and not be iron-fisted.
“Not to say the quiet part out loud that we’re trying to kill collectives. They just provided the opening statement for the first lawsuit against them. That you’re going to treat people differently. Or people are going to start paying under the table, or kids aren’t going to submit deals.”
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