{"id":805375,"date":"2026-03-10T22:33:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:33:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/805375\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T22:33:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T22:33:14","slug":"football-transfer-portal-fuels-surge-in-outside-nil-dealmaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/805375\/","title":{"rendered":"Football transfer portal fuels surge in outside NIL dealmaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

The flavor of the month in the College Sports Commission<\/a>\u2019s latest data report released Tuesday boils down to two words: \u201cassociated entities.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CSC\u2019s monthly bimonthly report hit on a number of noticeable nuggets, but more than anything, the January-February window of data that coincided with the football transfer portal saw a major uptick in deals brokered through associated entities (multimedia rights partners, apparel companies, collectives, etc.).<\/p>\n

Among the findings from all deals submitted to NIL Go between January and February (the report didn\u2019t disclose exact financial figures on details such as third-party NIL contracts):<\/p>\n

Associated Power Four deal volume increased by 65%, while the average value of deals with associated entities was up 182%Associated Power Four deals represented 79% of the total deal value of those submitted by such schools in January and February (up from 56% in November-December).Associated Power Four football deals were responsible for 81% of the total deal value and 48% of the total deal volume of Power Four associated deals during that span.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s fair to say that the NIL market in college athletics is not a normal organic market,\u201d CSC CEO Bryan Seeley told a small group of reporters Tuesday. \u201cIt\u2019s a market in which schools are manufacturing NIL for their student athletes. And they\u2019re doing it in such a way that deals are paid by entities affiliated with the school, or acting at the direction of the school.<\/p>\n

\u201c… It is totally fine within the rules to submit NIL deals with associated identities, but the shift is important, particularly because associated deals are subject to stricter review in NIL Go. They\u2019re subject to stricter review under NCAA rules. So, the massive increase in associated deal volume of this kind of manufactured NIL is leading to increased review times in NIL Go. I don\u2019t think the system was designed with this number of associated deals in mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why are schools looking to outside entities?<\/p>\n

That college sports leaders are pushing dealmaking through third parties shouldn\u2019t come as a surprise. The $20.5 million revenue sharing cap has become table stakes for those at the highest rungs of D-I, forcing the focus to shift to driving millions of uncapped dollars through third-party NIL deals. Schools have subsequently tasked their multimedia rights holders (Learfield, Playfly, JMI Sports, etc.), apparel companies and collectives to help meet the demand for cash. <\/p>\n

Those deals, to Seeley\u2019s point, are subject to more scrutiny than run-of-the-mill NIL agreements and require an increased level of human review. There\u2019s also the question as to whether those involved want to cooperate with the CSC\u2019s asks at all \u2014 no guarantee during a breakneck period of the college sports calendar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are people who do not want to provide information, particularly if it\u2019s information they think will lead to their deal not being approved,\u201d Seeley said. \u201c… Pushback on us and trying to get information also leads to increased review times, increased work for CSC staff and difficulties in clearing deals and it affects other deals downstream.\u201d<\/p>\n

How transfer portal affected approach to NIL<\/p>\n

The transfer portal\u2019s influence on dealmaking during the period the CSC examined can\u2019t be understated. <\/p>\n

Coaches, general managers, recruiting personnel and agents are working under intense time crunches to determine the futures of players they\u2019re involved with. Rules, however, prevent schools or associated entities from promising NIL dollars or warehousing rights as part of the recruiting process. That sees those within the system stuck between complying with policies or moving ahead with dealmaking before the CSC can vet those agreements.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no question that during the portal [window], agents were demanding guaranteed NIL for student athletes and schools felt pressure to guarantee those things even though such guarantees are not within the rules,\u201d Seeley said. \u201cI think any athletic director would tell you that.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few other broader notes from the CSC\u2019s report:<\/p>\n

21,025 deals worth a total value of $166.50 million have been cleared since the launch of NIL Go as of Feb. 28 \u2014 that includes 3,704 deals with a total value of $39.29 million cleared since the last Deal Flow Report released in January.711 deals with a total value of $29.3 million have been reviewed and not cleared.Since the launch of NIL Go, 70% of deals that reached resolution did so within seven days following submission of all required information \u2014 and 50% of deals submitted to NIL Go were resolved within 24 hours.18 were in arbitration as of Feb. 28. Those deals have since been consolidated into a single arbitration (the 10 deals previously reported in arbitration as of Dec. 31 were all withdrawn by the athletes). <\/p>\n

\u201cThe huge surge in deal volume seems to indicate to me that the vast majority of people are playing within the system,\u201d Seeley said. \u201c… But I\u2019m not naive enough to think there are others out there who are not submitting those kinds of deals.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The flavor of the month in the College Sports Commission\u2019s latest data report released Tuesday boils down to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":805376,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2026],"tags":[18234,331,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-805375","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-college-basketball","9":"tag-college-football","10":"tag-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116207262565385443","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/805376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}