Report: Lawyers, sports agents push back on NCAA's NIL crack down: 'Bring it'

Following reports of the NCAA starting to take steps to limit NIL collectives, agents and boosters are saying, ‘bring it.’ On Thursday night, a report surfaced saying leaders in college sports are pushing the NCAA to enforce new guidelines. Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger wrote college leaders want the NCAA to start investigating recruiting violations. Not just future problems, but some in the past, as well. 

Although the NCAA’s current interim policy says to “avoid pay-for-play and improper inducements tied to choosing to attend a particular school,” less than a year into the NIL free-for-all era, pay-for-play schemes are the bread and butter of NIL collectives.

Reporters for The Athletic spoke to agents and boosters to get their reactions to the NCAA’s new efforts.

“I think it’s adorable that the NCAA is acting as if they’re going to crack down on anything,” Oncoor Athlete Marketing agent Russell Smith said.

“This goes to the heart of antitrust problem for the NCAA, too, in trying to regulate NIL after it’s already been going on for 10 months: the NIL market generates competition, a core antitrust value,” Sportico legal expert Michael McCann tweeted. “It’s no longer a hypothetical of what happens if. It’s happened and is happening.”

The NCAA will have a tough time putting the cat back in the bag after a year of unfettered deal-making. Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith believes litigation is essentially unavoidable. However, he and other program leaders are willing to take that risk.

NCAA faces antitrust lawsuits with NIL crackdown

“We had to make a business decision to say, ‘You know what? This is a line in the sand,’” Gene Smith told The Athletic. “There’s going to be risk with the position that we’re going to take. There always is with these types of things. We could get sued. But, for the betterment of the whole and all the student-athletes we serve, we’ve got to take that risk.”

“​​The moment they come to try to interfere with one of my clients’ deals — the next day is the moment they get hit with an antitrust lawsuit,” Mike Caspino, an attorney representing several NIL collective-backed athletes, told The Athletic. “They’re saying there’s a whole class of people (boosters) who can’t participate in the market for athletes’ NIL rights. That’d be like saying red-haired people can’t buy meat. That’s antitrust.”

The NCAA is exploring penalties for rule-breakers that could apply to ill-begotten deals that are already in place. Penalties could include booster disassociated and lack of institutional control for programs.

A report on Friday suggests that athletes with offers from NIL collectives might have to sit down with officials to “spill the beans.”

“The student athletes that were getting these alleged offers from these collectives will probably be getting phone calls from enforcement to have a sit-down,” the individual told Pat Forde. “Their eligibility wouldn’t be impacted but they’ll be asked to spill the beans and would be mandated to cooperate.”