Attorneys file motion to prevent CSC review of multimedia rights NIL deals

College Sports Commission, NIL Go

Plaintiff attorneys in the House v. NCAA lawsuit have filed a motion requesting that the magistrate judge declare that school multimedia rights partners be exempt from the College Sports Clearinghouse’s NIL enforcement. Filed on Monday, the move comes after growing frustration in recent months over the CSC’s decisions. Deals would still be required to be submitted.

Multimedia rights partners such as Learfield and Playfly have dealt with issues getting deals cleared. The CSC recently rejected a group of Nebraska deals because they violated a policy dubbed “warehousing,” when a multimedia rights partner purchases athletes’ NIL rights. Nebraska’s athletes have since moved to arbitration with the CSC.

Sources have told On3 that the CSC is pinning too many deals on the “associated entity” term, which is used to describe deals facilitated by NIL collectives or schools’ boosters. The motion filed on Monday would apply to multimedia partners “unless the party” paying for the athlete’s NIL is deemed an associated entity, which could complicate the interpretation of any change.

“The CSC’s attempt to rewrite the Settlement, shoehorn MMRs and third-party sponsors into the definition of Associated Entities or Individuals, and anoint itself a roving police force with limitless authority over Class Members’ NIL deals, must be rejected,” the filing states.

The motion also asks the magistrate judge to rule that third-party brand sponsors are not “associated entities” because a school was involved in arranging an NIL agreement between the brand and athlete.

In a new data release by the CSC in March, associated contracts tied to schools’ sponsors and booster-operated companies made up 63% of all NIL agreements in the last two months. In total, the CSC said 711 deals worth $29.3 million have been reviewed and not cleared. Playfly Sports and Learfield deals that are facilitated with legitimate brands have also been slowed down by the clearinghouse in some instances and classified as associated-entity deals.