Less than a month into the rollout of college sports’ new revenue-sharing and NIL (name, image, likeness) governance model, frustration is boiling over. The College Sports Commission (CSC), the independent body created to enforce and oversee NIL compliance under the House v. NCAA settlement, is already under fire from schools, attorneys, and collectives for its handling of deal approvals, and the confusion is only growing.
A New System, Already Under Siege
At the heart of the controversy is NIL Go, the new Deloitte-powered clearinghouse set up by the CSC. Starting July 1, all third-party NIL deals worth $600 or more must be submitted to NIL Go for review. The goal? Ensure payments are tied to legitimate promotional activity, not backdoor salaries or pay-for-play schemes.
In just a few weeks, the CSC has already rejected dozens of deals, many of them involving donor-backed collectives - long a backbone of the NIL economy. The reason being that those deals don’t meet the CSC’s “valid business purpose” requirement, which demands that NIL arrangements serve a for-profit objective involving the athlete’s actual promotional value.
That sounds reasonable—until you try to define what a “valid business purpose” really is. Turns out, almost no one can agree.
What’s Being Denied—and Why
In a letter to athletic directors, the CSC explained that collectives paying athletes to attend exclusive donor events, sell merchandise designed to fundraise for the athlete, or promote the collective itself don’t meet the “valid business” standard. The rationale? These activities don’t offer goods or services to the general public for profit—they exist primarily to funnel money back to the athletes or schools.
That interpretation, however, is being met with swift and significant resistance.
Plaintiffs’ Lawyers Push Back: “This Was Not the Deal”
Attorneys representing the plaintiffs in the House v. NCAA case - Jeffrey Kessler and Steve Berman - sent a sharply worded letter to the NCAA and the CSC, arguing that the new guidance violates the terms of the settlement. The lawyers contend that the CSC is unfairly targeting NIL collectives and treating them differently than traditional businesses.
“There is nothing in the Settlement Agreement,” Kessler wrote, “to permit the CSC to decide that collectives can’t engage in for-profit promotions using student-athlete NIL.” In fact, they argue, many deals that were denied—autograph signings, appearances, even promotional sales—clearly fall under what the settlement allows.
And now they’re threatening to take the issue back to federal court for resolution.
Schools Feel the Squeeze
Meanwhile, universities are stuck in the middle. With revenue-sharing newly in place, and a $20.5 million annual cap on school-based athlete pay, many programs had hoped to keep collectives alive as a pressure valve for additional compensation that wouldn’t count against the cap.
But if the CSC is going to treat all collective deals with suspicion, those strategic workarounds become less viable and compliance officers are left guessing what’s acceptable.
“This system is barely three weeks old, and we already have lawsuits brewing,” said one compliance director, speaking anonymously.
“Everyone is interpreting the CSC the same way they did the NCAA—like a legal document that they can stretch to fit their goals.”
A Broader Identity Crisis
What’s happening isn’t just about NIL paperwork. It’s about who gets to control the future of college sports, and how rules should be enforced in an increasingly professionalized model. The NCAA is trying to fade into the background as a regulator, letting the CSC take point, but schools are quickly discovering that the CSC is less of a neutral watchdog and more of an evolving experiment.
With 1,500+ deals approved and at least 80 already rejected, there’s confusion on all sides about what the CSC is supposed to be: Is it a referee? An enforcement agency? A legal buffer to help conferences avoid antitrust liability? Or is it just the next group to be dragged through litigation?
Why It Matters
This is a defining moment. College sports are at an inflection point, and the House settlement was supposed to bring clarity. Instead, schools, collectives, and athletes are now navigating a brand-new regulatory body that hasn’t yet earned the trust of the people it governs.
At the same time, critics of the current NIL structure - including some of the lawyers behind this very system - are sounding the alarm. They worry that if the CSC cracks down too hard on collectives and third-party deals, the promised freedom of the new era might just replicate the old one: heavy-handed restrictions, opaque rulings, and unequal treatment of athletes depending on which school they play for.
The Bottom Line
The CSC was meant to clean up the NIL world. But just weeks in, it’s clear that the fight over how athletes are paid and who gets to decide the rules is far from over.
We’ve seen this before with the NCAA. And now, barely a month in, we’re already litigating the College Sports Commission in real time.
