The College Sports Commission opened up NIL investigations into Nebraska, among others, according to Front Office Sports. There was an investigation in January, specifically relating to whether or not Nebraska failed to report NIL deals into the NIL Go system.
“The College Sports Commission, which was created to enforce the rules of the House v. NCAA settlement, has said that it has launched several inquiries into potential rules violations related to unreported NIL deals,” the report from Amanda Christovich read. “The rules now require that all Division I athletes submit all NIL deals above $600 for scrutiny and approval through a software called NIL Go. CSC employees and external lawyers then review the deals to ensure they represent fair market value for a valid business purpose, rather than pay-for-play in disguise.”
Nebraska senior associate athletic director for compliance, Patty Peterson, wrote to the CSC on January 29th that two athletes had submitted additional details to NIL Go. This came two weeks after an investigator emailed Nebraska AD Troy Dannen regarding if one of their sports teams failed to report one or more third-party NIL deals.
“There was confusion by both student-athletes about the exact timing of certain deals and/or payments received for those deals and whether they triggered post-House settlement disclosure requirements,” Peterson wrote, adding that an unnamed athlete “is working on submitting one more deal as soon as [redacted] can track down the contract.”
As of now, it’s unclear if the inquiry has been completely resolved. At this point, fellow Nebraska associate athletic director for administration, Jonathan Bateman, confirmed additional deals with a redacted company existed and were submitted.
“As previously indicated, the CSC has reached out to several schools to inform them of investigations into unreported NIL deals,” a statement from the CSC told FOS. “We will not comment further at this time.”
Nebraska was the second school identified as part of the initial inquiries from the CSC. The Athletic reported that an athlete at LSU, who did not play football, was one of the players being investigated. That was resolved without punishment.
“In the case of Nebraska athletes, it appears the CSC resolved issues with the lack of reporting rather than hand down punishments to the players and their schools,” The report from FOS read. “That was also reportedly the case with LSU.”
