$80 million in NIL approved by newly launched College Sports Commission

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The new College Sports Commission has cleared more than 8,300 name, image and likeness deals worth nearly $80 million, it said Thursday in its first full update on how the new system is working.

The commission, which is in charge of approving contracts worth $600 or more between college athletes and third-party companies that pay them, said 28,342 students signed up on its NIL Go platform between June 11, when it launched, and Aug. 31. Nearly 3,200 “representatives” or agents had also signed up.

The platform was created as part of the House settlement, which allows schools to pay athletes directly for their NIL, while also offering them a chance to make money from outside groups. NIL Go is in charge of analyzing the outside deals.

“The initial report shows the new system is working as intended,” said Bryan Seeley, the CEO of the commission.

The report said 332 deals had not been cleared to date and 75 had been resubmitted, while none had entered arbitration, which is available for parties who feel their deals have been wrongly rejected.

The commission said the most common clearance issues were delays in attesting to or providing required information; contradictory deal terms, misreporting of deal terms or mistakes in entering deal terms; and deals that don't satisfy the “valid business purpose” requirement that caused confusion when the platform first rolled out.

The CSC said values of the deals ranged as high as $1.8 million. It said its “deal flow reports” will be updated on a regular basis.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports