‘Kind of a Joke’: Frustrations Mount As New NIL Deal Approval Process Lags

For months, industry experts in college sports expressed concerns about the new NIL deal approval process—a software tool called NIL Go. They’ve been skeptical that the process would be legal on antitrust grounds, and scoffed at the idea that the College Sports Commission, tasked with overseeing NIL Go, would be able to police whether thousands of athletes followed the new process.

Now the functionality of NIL Go is being called into question as well. 

NIL Go, the approval system created by Deloitte, is taking multiple days, if not weeks, to issue approval decisions, multiple collective operators and NIL player agents tell Front Office Sports. In some cases, deals submitted up to three weeks before publishing haven’t been approved at all.

The delays have already caused at least one athlete to lose an NIL opportunity, as the time for the athlete to complete the deal’s deliverables has passed while the deal submission form languished in NIL Go’s system, one collective operator told FOS.

“It’s kind of a joke, in my opinion, that they are taking this long to make some decisions,” the head of the collective said.

Then, on Thursday, the College Sports Commission, the entity tasked with overseeing NIL GO and enforcing the settlement’s terms, released new guidance suggesting that some of the deals still in limbo—specifically some offered by collectives—may ultimately be rejected.

The landmark House v. NCAA settlement allowed power conferences to set up a system to scrutinize whether NIL deals are “fair-market value” or  if they’re “pay-for-play” disguised as third-party NIL. The conferences tasked Deloitte with using the criteria laid out in the settlement to create software to assess the deals. (Athletes can appeal a rejected deal through a third party.

The online system opened in June, requiring players to submit information about their own deals, along with information added by companies they’re working with. Athletes across Division I are required to submit all deals over $600 for approval, and must do so at least within five days of the deal taking place.

‘A Huge Headache’

Multiple sources told FOS that NIL Go communicated to players that they should expect responses to their deal submissions one to three days after they submit. But in many cases, they’re taking days, if not weeks, to get approval.

Miggie Suarez, Head of Talent at the marketing agency Raymond Representation, explained that some deals have been approved relatively quickly, from a few days to a week-and-a-half—but those deals offer “in-kind” compensation without any monetary compensation, like offering a player clothing in exchange for a social media post. Raymond added: “They’ve taken three to five days at least—at the minimum, I’ve never seen one approved in 24 hours.” 

Logistical hurdles have significantly slowed down the approval of other brand deals, Suarez noted. She described one deal with a player who is a dual citizen, and who was partnering with a company based overseas, saying it wasn’t possible to submit the full application because the company didn’t have a home state or other information that U.S.-based companies have—both things the form requires—because it didn’t have an office in the U.S. She did note that “NIL Go’s been pretty good about communicating with us” to fix the problem.

Overall, though, Raymond described the process as “a huge headache.” 

Deals between collectives and athletes, rather than brands and athletes, are taking much longer to receive any kind of response.

Two collective operators, who spoke with FOS anonymously for fear of retribution, said that none of the deals they’ve submitted have received any kind of response, with some being submitted at least two or even three weeks ago.

“They’ve all been lower-dollar deals, all under $5,000,” one of the collective operators said of the deals, which have been for players of multiple sports.” The operator added that the deals included “multiple deliverables” and were “very normal in nature.”

The operator said their collective, like many others, is acting more like a marketing agency to connect players and brands. For logistical ease, the brands in many cases pay the collective—so they can send all their money to one place—and the collective doles out payments to players. But because the collective is the company listed as paying the player, s opposed to the company actually doing the deal, the scrutiny is heightened, the operator says. 

The operator even noted at least one case where a player lost potential NIL revenue because NIL Go didn’t respond. The player submitted a request to do a deal, but didn’t hear back from NIL Go by the time the deal was supposed to take place. As a result, the player didn’t complete the deal, and lost the money they would have earned as a result. 

“If this doesn’t get rectified this is going to be a pretty big hit on some of these athletes,” the operator said.

Clarification From the College Sports Commission 

A spokesperson for the College Sports Commission acknowledged the lag time in a statement to FOS Wednesday, saying “the College Sports Commission regrets these early delays.” They said the process “will speed up significantly” as more deals are processed.

On Thursday, the College Sports Commission published additional guidance that suggests some submitted collective deals may ultimately be rejected. 

“NIL collectives may act as marketing agencies that match student-athletes with businesses that have a valid business purpose and seek to use the student’s NIL to promote their businesses,” the CSC said. But it said that collectives cannot pay players for appearing at events or selling merchandise that is solely for the collective—there needs to be an outside company involved. 

In other words, many of the same types of collective deals that were previously commonplace may now be denied. (A memo obtained by Yahoo! Sports suggested that many collective deals haven’t received guidance because they ultimately won’t be approved.)

“Since the beginning of the NIL era, the NCAA, conference commissioners, and athletic directors have resisted every form of progress when it comes to fairly compensating athletes,” a third collective operator told FOS. “Now, a newly formed commission believes it can unilaterally dictate what’s allowed—flying in the face of over two centuries of legal precedent. But here’s the truth: the athletes are the value. Whether the commission likes it or not, the money will continue to flow to the players. No ruling or restriction can change that.”