NIL Go approves nearly $80 million in payments to athletes, who is left behind?

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00:00$80 million. That's what the first batch of NIL deals approved by the College Sports Commission is worth.

00:08Over 8,300 students have submitted third-party deals to the commission since the pay-for-play era began in June.

00:16The new system to approve name, image, and likeness contracts between college athletes and third-party companies

00:23must approve any deal over $600 and has rejected 332 deals so far.

00:3175 of those rejected deals have been resubmitted.

00:35The NIL Go platform and the College Sports Commission were created as part of the House vs. NCAA settlement,

00:42which allows schools to pay athletes directly while also offering them a chance to make money from outside groups.

00:49Ross Bjork, the athletic director at Ohio State University, says third-party deals are essential

00:55because schools can only pay $20.5 million directly to athletes.

01:01So is $18 or $20.5 million enough? No. The answer is no.

01:07Right, because again, it's all about, okay, what are they doing over here?

01:10What's this program doing? How is this person now taking their apparel contract, let's say,

01:15because those have been in the news lately, and then redeploying that towards NIL above and beyond the cap.

01:21Has to go through the system, has to go through the clearinghouse,

01:24it has to meet those standards that are part of the settlement.

01:27So now we're all going through this analysis.

01:30Those third-party deals are expected to increase exponentially in the next year.

01:35In just the first six weeks, more than 28,000 athletes and more than 1,200 administrators have registered.

01:41Those athletes have added more than 3,000 designated representatives or agents.

01:471,658 athletes and 507 school administrators log on to NIL Go in an average week.

01:54And some of those 8,300 deals that have been cleared are worth more than $1.6 million.

02:00Right now, there's no data available outlining which sports facilitate the most outside NIL deals.

02:07It's safe to assume that power for football and basketball lead the way.

02:10Does that mean Olympic sports and others that are less popular are being left behind?

02:16Martin Jarmond, AD at UCLA, believes something has to change.

02:20You know, is there going to be a cliff with Olympic sports?

02:23I don't see that, obviously, at UCLA, but I do worry about, as a whole, our Olympic movement,

02:28if we don't figure out a better way to fund Olympic sports, because that's the issue.

02:33The issue is the funding model for Olympic sports, and I think that's got to adjust.

02:37Athletic departments can influence third-party deals through their marketing and collective efforts,

02:42but ultimately, administrators have no control over which athlete receives money from outside sources,

02:48as long as it's approved by the College Sports Commission.

02:51The CSC has said its deal flow reports will be updated regularly, and the numbers promise to be staggering.

02:58Ross Bjork put it this way, everybody needs money, everybody is trying to churn and burn

03:03through this new era of what it looks like to keep investing and supporting your athletes.

03:09For Straight Arrow News, I'm Chris Francis.