NIL

[No13Seed Jim]

In all practical terms, isn't NIL now almost totally unregulated? Aren't we truly in the twilight zone? I haven't heard of anyone's NIL being turned down for being outside of "true market value."

[FootLaw]

16 minutes ago, No13Seed Jim said:

In all practical terms, isn't NIL now almost totally unregulated? Aren't we truly in the twilight zone? I haven't heard of anyone's NIL being turned down for being outside of "true market value."

Hard to establish true market value with a small data set and looming lawsuits for denials. It's going to take a few more years to work itself out.

[ArizonaLonghorn]

36 minutes ago, No13Seed Jim said:

In all practical terms, isn't NIL now almost totally unregulated? Aren't we truly in the twilight zone? I haven't heard of anyone's NIL being turned down for being outside of "true market value."

The key things to look at are first, how many deals are being turned down for not meeting the FMV threshold and second, how many lawsuits are filed regarding deals not accepted. The NCAA has a recent history of caving at the mere mention of lawsuits, given their history of losing so many court cases the past few years.

I just checked and the updated stats seem to indicate the agents have figured out ways to make most deals 'legal'.

From Associated Press article More than $87 million in NIL deals have been approved in college sports since June (updated Nov 9 so pretty recent):

(quote)

The College Sports Commission released statistics Thursday saying it has approved 12,175 third-party name, image, likeness deals for athletes worth $87.5 million while rejecting fewer than 400.

The latest snapshot, which includes data from June 11 through Nov. 1, also provided an update on turnaround time. It said 53% of deals submitted to NIL Go were resolved within 24 hours and 74% of deals that reached resolution did so within seven days following submission of all required information.

Third-party deals, often with organizations with close ties to the schools called collectives, are a way for athletic departments to go beyond the $20.5 million they’re allowed to pay players directly this academic year as part of the court-approved House settlement.

...

The overall value of the rejected deals was $10.01 million, with an average of $25,400.

Common reasons for rejecting deals include them not fitting the CSC definition of having a “valid business purpose,” a requirement designed to prevent collectives from simply paying athletes to play at the school. Also, a practice called “warehousing” athletes’ NIL rights is against the rules; that happens when a company locks up a player’s NIL rights with no immediate plan to use them.

Athletes must also be receiving a fair “range of compensation” for what they’re doing, a metric being determined by Deloitte, the accounting firm hired by the CSC to create NIL Go.

The 394 rejected deals does not include deals that were not cleared at first but have been sent back for further review.

The CSC said no cases have been sent to arbitration.

(/quote)

This will be an ongoing story but so far it looks like the 3rd party deals are going through relatively unscathed.  Would be nice to know if the really big ones like Felix Ojo's $5 million+ deal are getting approved.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by ArizonaLonghorn