NIL Go Has Cleared $166.5 Million in Deals, but Collective Deals Are Clogging It
By faNILy Team ·
The College Sports Commission (CSC) released its latest NIL Go deal flow report this week, and it tells two stories at once. Lots of NIL money is moving through the system. And a growing share of it is the kind that takes the longest to review.
The numbers
The CSC announced Tuesday that it has approved $166.5 million worth of NIL deals since NIL Go launched last June, according to Front Office Sports. Another $29.3 million worth of deals were not cleared.
For context, Front Office Sports reported in January that NIL Go had approved $127.21 million in deals at that point. So the pace hasn't slowed, even as the mix of deals has changed.
The real story: associated entities
Deals with "associated entities," a group that includes NIL collectives, multimedia rights holders and apparel sponsors, get extra scrutiny. They need to spell out specific deliverables and reflect fair market value for a valid business purpose, so they take longer to clear.
And they're taking over. Between November and the end of December, 54% of deals submitted through NIL Go involved associated entities. For deals submitted from Jan. 1 through the end of February, that share jumped to 78%.
Front Office Sports reported that NIL Go, built by Deloitte, was designed assuming only about 10% of deals would involve collectives or other associated entities. CSC CEO Bryan Seeley put it plainly: "I don't think the system was designed with this amount of 'associated deals' in mind."
The timing isn't a coincidence. Front Office Sports noted the spike coincided with football's transfer portal window. Seeley said there's no quick fix, and the CSC will have to modify the NIL Go software to handle the volume.
Why it matters
When review queues back up, athletes wait longer to find out whether a deal is approved. For a player counting on that money, slower reviews are a real cost.
The CSC has also been clear about what it won't allow. Front Office Sports reported in January that the commission prohibits "warehousing," meaning offering athletes a specific amount of money without specifying which deals they'll have to complete.
There's an enforcement wrinkle, too. Front Office Sports reported that the CSC needs schools to sign participant agreements, in which they agree to cooperate with investigations and accept punishments without challenging them in court. An earlier Dec. 3 deadline passed without all the signatures it needed, and without them, Seeley warned, enforcement will move slowly.
The fan angle
Here's what jumps out to us. The deals clogging the pipeline are mostly school-adjacent money. NIL Go was built expecting most deals to be ordinary third-party deals, where a business pays an athlete for clear, specific work.
That's the lane where fans fit. When fans buy a personalized video or an exclusive piece of content directly from an athlete, the deliverable is obvious. As NIL matures, that kind of clear, commercial exchange is likely to matter more, not less.
We'll keep tracking the CSC's reports as they come out. The next one should show how March Madness and the spring portal windows move the numbers.