NIL isn’t about telling a kid what they’re worth to play football. NIL is a marketing deal whereby Company X pays a kid to represent or sponsor their product for money. Company X records a marketing expenditure on their books and taxes. There’s also the silly collective charitable functions to funnel money to players, but all now agree that’ll be going away.
NIL is not the school paying a fee to play football.
As with many commercial marketing agreement, a fair value criteria must be maintained - whether NIL to an athlete or paying an actor to do a commercial or pitch a product. If FMV is violated, the agreement is not valid. And, most importantly, Company X loses the tax deductibility of the marketing expense paid to the player or actor.
PWC is being hired to validate the FMV of player NIL deals going forward. Just as PWC values other commercial marketing agreements for their corporate clients every day. PWC is not enforcing anything. They are expressing their professional opinion on the FMV on the agreement. PWC will the report their opinion to NCAA or SEC enforcement for THEM to determine any next steps or penalties for violations.
This is what will be called in the post-House settlement landscape of college football as “legitimate NIL”. Such as Quinn Ewers with Dr.Pepper, Caleb Williams with Dr.Pepper, or Arch Manning / Livy Dunne with Vuori.
Again, the reason USC is offering 3-year guaranteed contracts if agreed to before House is to avoid exactly the NIL validation process described above by grandfathering these currently INVALID (non-FMV) agreements with athletes.
Nobody is denying any athlete the ability to earn as much money as possible legitimately through marketing their Name, Image, and Likeness to corporate sponsors. This is about regulating the pay-for-play schemes that are already running amok at certain schools - USC, Miami, aggy.