In its most recent review cycle, the College Sports Commission's clearinghouse did not clear 524 NIL deals worth $14.94 million.
That's roughly one dollar in every ten that got submitted. The reasons weren't paperwork technicalities, either. Activation that wasn't real. Deals with no legitimate business purpose. And inflated pay.
That last one is the one I want to talk about today, because it runs against every instinct a parent has.
What actually changed
The numbers come from the CSC's clearinghouse data, reported by CBS Sports and ESPN. 524 deals, $14.94 million, about 10% of the total deal value that went in for review. Averaged out, the deals that didn't clear came to about $28,500 each.
Put that next to the other change from this summer. Since July 1, most deals under $15,000 don't get an automatic second look, as long as a kid's total for the year stays under $50,000. So the scrutiny now sits on the bigger deals. Those are the exact deals where the number is the headline.
Congress hasn't changed any of this. The Protect College Sports Act cleared the Senate Commerce Committee 19 to 9 in June, then missed a floor vote before the August recess. Debate won't start before September 15. Its 5% cap on agent fees limits how much of the number an agent can take. It says nothing about whether the number itself holds up.
What it means at your kitchen table
When an offer comes in high, nobody at the table questions it. Your kid feels valued. You feel relieved. If there's an agent, they're usually paid a percentage, so a bigger number is better for them too. Everyone in the room has a reason to like the number, and nobody has a reason to test it.
The clearinghouse does. Its job is to ask whether the money matches the work, and whether a business would pay that much for the work on its own merits. When the answer is no, the deal stops reading like an endorsement and starts reading like recruiting money with a logo on it.
I'll be honest about what I don't know. I haven't seen the clearinghouse publish a formula a family could check a number against before signing. What I do see is that most of the offers that come across my table put the total in bold on page one and describe the work in a single vague line somewhere after it. That's backwards from how the deal is going to be judged.
A family can do everything right, sign in good faith, and still end up holding a deal that came back because somebody upstream priced it for a reason that had nothing to do with advertising.
What to do this week
Three things, all before a signature.
Put the pay next to the work. Divide the total by the number of posts, appearances, or autograph sessions the contract actually lists. If the contract doesn't list them, you found the problem before the clearinghouse did.
Ask who set the number and what it was compared against. "What does this brand pay anyone else for the same work?" is a fair question to ask out loud. If the answer is about what your kid means to the program, that's a recruiting answer, not an advertising one.
Ask what happens if the price is the issue. Can the deal be resubmitted at a lower amount? Does the contract say who decides that, or does the whole thing simply end? Get that answer while you can still walk away.
A big number is good news only if it survives review. Read it like someone is going to question it, because someone is.
Talk soon. — Keeno