It's Not What Most Schools, Including Oklahoma State Wanted to Hear

STILLWATER – We first got word on this with a text message from and Oklahoma State head coach: “That didn’t take long.” He’s right. It has been less than a month since the implementation of the House vs. NCAA settlement and college sports unleashing it’s new entity to police out-of-line and frivolous NIL deals, the College Sports Commission. The attorneys for the House plaintiffs have struck an agreement with the representatives of the power conferences and the NCAA to soften the soften the enforcement of NIL deals and the continued involvement of collectives outside the schools and funded by boosters and fans.

Yahoo first reported the agreements and received the information from sources that spoke under the term of maintaining anonymity. 

Part of the agreement has the College Sports Commission treating collectives or any “school-associated entity” in a similar fashion as other businesses in evaluating the legitimacy of third-party NIL deals submitted to the CSC’s NIL Go clearinghouse.

The power conferences and their leadership including commissioners like the Big 12’s Brett Yormark and today in Charlotte, N.C. and the comments of ACC commissioner Jim Phillips were urging schools to abide by the somewhat salary cap-like terms of the $20.5 million in revenue sharing. 

This process started with the discovery of a memo sent out to schools two weeks ago regarding the CSC and their purpose, explaining that it has denied dozens of athlete deals from collectives because it is holding collectives to a higher threshold, announcing that businesses whose sole existence is to pay athletes (i.e. collectives) cannot meet the definition of a “valid business purpose.”

The House plaintiff attorneys caught wind of that memo and immediatley went into action to have the definition of the CSC’s role and ability to discard those deals refined and held closer to the standard int he original ruling by the Federal Judge Claudia Wilken. 

There will be more to this case, before anything is released and an official definition is established, but this is moving back toward the climate that schools like Texas Tech; Miami, Fla; Ohio State; Oregon; and others were enjoying and taking advantage of.