Nebraska players challenge CSC in potential precedent-settting NIL arbitration

In what will likely be the first of several instances of players challenging NIL rulings by the College Sports Commission (CSC), 18 Nebraska players are going to arbitration after NIL deals with a combined value in excess of $1 million were rejected, Yahoo Sports reports.

The NIL deals — made with Nebraska media rights partner Playfly — were rejected due to a practice called “warehousing,” in which an entity buys a player’s NIL rights for all future partnerships and endorsements. In order to comply with CSC guidance and get the green light from the NIL Go clearinghouse, deliverables like TV commercials and autograph signings must be listed in the contracts.

Husch-Blackwell will represent the players in the arbitration case, and the law firm has experience with cases related to college sports.

This will likely not be the only time that players reach arbitration with the CSC over rejected NIL deals. Per Yahoo, athletes at several universities are mulling the possibility of challenging an NIL Go ruling.

As reported by CBS Sports’ Brandon Marcello, the CSC is already having trouble keeping up with the amount of NIL deals that have been submitted for review. In January and February, 3,704 NIL deals worth a total of $39.29 million were approved. Meanwhile, another 187 deals worth $14.36 million were rejected.

“I don’t think the system was designed with this amount of associated deals in mind,” CSC CEO Bryan Seeley told CBS Sports.

At the time, Marcello reported that 18 NIL deals had reached arbitration, and we now know that all those involved Nebraska players. They were all consolidated into one arbitration case because the deals were so similar.

“In general, in arbitration, deals are consolidated because the issues are essentially the same,” Seeley said. “And what that often looks like is they are different student-athletes, but it’s the same or identical deal, or similar or identical deal, and they’re all from the same school.”

Because of that volume, the turnaround time on reviews has increased. Seeley downplayed the idea that the staff shortages at the CSC are the main factor in the slow review process. Instead, he argued that the nature of the deals, as well as a lack of information from entities involved in the deals, were the biggest problems.

The CSC launched NIL Go last June, and since then, more than 21,000 deals totaling around $16.5 million have been submitted as schools try to find ways to spend above the revenue-sharing cap.