CHARLOTTE — Three weeks since the onset of revenue sharing in college sports, skepticism is rife about whether the changes surrounding enforcement will be any better from the NCAA-led version.
“I hate to say, I don’t have faith because you have to have faith for anything to work. So, I have a lot of faith going in, but I’ll let you know in a year,” Pitt football coach Pat Narduzzi says. “You know, the NCAA couldn’t control it in the past. There’s no control right now. So it’s got to be better than nothing, right?”
As part of the House settlement terms, the College Sports Commission was formed to police schools from going above the revenue-sharing cap. Working in conjunction with accounting firm Deloitte, it will approve outside, third-party NIL deals for players. CEO Bryan Seeley is tasked with getting the organization off the ground and hiring investigators to look into potential violations. He also will hand down penalties against schools, coaches or administrators.
Those penalties, a comprehensive list of which has not been made publicly available, have been part of the growing concern about the new system’s effectiveness.
“I think it’s just a matter of when someone is [punished] and that’s O.K. That needs to happen. And if it happens in our league, I won’t feel any differently about it because this is about us trying to settle down the whole entire enterprise,” ACC commissioner Jim Phillips says. “We’re responsible for our league. But I think, for the four commissioners that have been heavily involved in this, we also understand college athletics needs this. It can’t be driven by just our personal interest in our specific conference.”
The inherent difficulties in instituting that change bubbled up this week hours after Phillips spoke at the ACC football media day. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the House case reached an agreement with the CSC to change how the latter treats collectives, as reported by Yahoo Sports. That could significantly change how schools operate outside of their revenue-sharing payments to athletes.
Previously, the CSC had ruled NIL deals with athletes which were either paid by, or brokered by, school collectives were not deemed a valid business purpose. That forced a pause on deals submitted by collectives, players or other representatives on the new NIL Go platform that acts as a clearinghouse for all transactions above $600.
That hits upon the heart of what the settlement was designed to do from the power conferences' standpoint: limit collective payments that had little connection to a player’s actual NIL. It also caused an uproar from many who were under the impression that such deals would be allowed as long as Deloitte and the CSC found they represented the actual market value for players.
Lead plaintiffs attorney Jeffrey Kessler sent a letter demanding a reversal in the guidance around collectives two weeks ago to the conferences and the CSC shortly after the decision was made which, sources tell Sports Illustrated, prompted several long, back-and-forth sessions with lawyers representing the conferences and the NCAA before a breakthrough was reached earlier this week.
While there are still a few particulars to iron out before the CSC issues a statement on the new guidance, the entity will soon permit collectives to offer NIL deals with athletes and allow them to proceed through the clearinghouse pipeline. Deals will only be approved, however, as long as they properly adhere to the “range of compensation” formula Deloitte is using to sort out legitimate business uses for players’ NIL and the types of payments mostly designed to circumvent the previously agreed upon $20.5 million revenue-sharing cap figure that began on July 1.
“We’ve got to decide if we want Major League Baseball or we want the NFL. Major League Baseball has some teams with $250 million [payrolls] and some teams playing Moneyball at $40 million,” Wake Forest coach Jake Dickert says. “Or do we want a hard salary cap like the NFL and who’s doing the best with their resources? You know, the NFL doesn't have GoFundMe for free agents, right? They don’t, they play with a certain set of rules.”
The rules college football had been operating under were previously well known given that they were stuffed into the inches-thick NCAA book of bylaws. That didn’t always mean they were being followed—and especially not when it came to paying players.
Coaches this week were quick to point out that even this most recent change surrounding how collectives or outside NIL is treated is yet another case of shifting the line in the sand instead of drawing a hard one that many administrators had promised as part of the House settlement.
“We all know, as things have changed year over year, how the revenue sharing works,” Ohio State coach Ryan Day said Tuesday. “I think what we’re looking for is clarity on how the third-party NIL deals will be regulated, how they’ll be handled and how they’ll be enforced moving forward. And how those who don’t disclose deals will be enforced and penalized.”
“As changes are made, as things are instituted, you want to see that consistency,” Florida State coach Mike Norvell said. “You want to see clarity in what it is, consistency in how it’s applied. Once that’s established, then everybody can move forward. If you say it’s going to be one way and everybody operates differently, there’s no continuity to what the expectations are, what the rules are, and the application of it all.”
Some football players didn’t seem too concerned by all the changes despite the fact they are now almost all compensated in some form by schools, collectives or, in some cases, both.
“Coaches just want to coach. Talking about money with players and stuff can get ugly, coaches don’t want to get into that,” Pitt All-American linebacker Kyle Louis says. “I told them, with the money, just talk to my attorney.”
Panthers tailback Desmond Reid noted players have discussed revenue sharing and NIL deals within the locker room recently, but it’s not as divisive a subject as some portray and often doesn’t result in any numbers being shared.
“They blessed me, that’s all I can say,” he says of his payments from Pitt.
Georgia Tech linebacker Kyle Efford confirmed he has a deal with the Yellow Jackets collective that provided him compensation. Unlike some of his peers, he prefers not having an outside agent while still in school to handle such matters or discussions. He submitted several NIL deals directly through the new platform that would have previously flown under the radar but recalls the new process is pretty effortless.
“I think at first there was some hesitancy in a third party being able to judge or deem whether or not your agreement with a separate entity is viable,” says Louisville quarterback Miller Moss, who confirmed he put several deals into NIL Go. “It’s been pretty seamless. I don’t think I’ve had anything flagged—I certainly hope not. It’s been pretty easy to use and I think it’s going to be interesting to see how it continues to evolve.”
Despite the ease of use on the player’s side of the transaction, there remain concerns over whether this new system will really be able to rein in the Wild West that allowed teams to spend more than $20 million on their rosters.
The recent issue surrounding collectives brought that back to the forefront this week with coaches expressing optimism about their current teams while knowing that assembling next year’s roster could be done under far different circumstances.
“Is it really going to be a structure where you have to approve all the NIL deals that are filed or not? We’ll see. It seems like it’s not going in that direction here lately,” Louisville coach Jeff Brohm says. “I’m in favor of making all [players] employees just like the pro game. I think if everyone would buy into that, the sooner the better, we would be better off. It’s a proven system. We’re paying our athletes now so I do applaud that.”
Several Power 4 coaches tell SI that some sort of collective bargaining needs to be implemented down the road. Administrators aren’t ready to cross that rubicon yet and would prefer if the system at least gets a chance to find solid ground to operate.
“We must remember that everything will not be perfect immediately. We know we must get this right, which we take very seriously. We’re being thoughtful about every detail,” Phillips said. “Without question, there’s still significant work to be done, but we must acknowledge that, collectively, we are truly in a better place and we have a responsibility to make it work in the future.”
There may indeed be some sort of widespread accountability and a little misplaced hope, but until things work smoothly, faith could be all you can have at the moment.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as College Sports’ Revenue-Sharing Era Faces Early Concerns Over Collectives.
