Ross Dellenger believes NCAA fears litigation on NIL enforcement

All offseason, speculation has run rampant about the NCAA’s enforcement of NIL bylaws. Monday, Sports Illustrated’s Ross Dellenger — who’s been at the forefront of NIL reporting — shared some potential reasons for the issues.

Speaking on The Paul Finebaum Show, Dellenger listed multiple reasons NIL has become somewhat of a “Wild, Wild West” this year. Citing conversations with athletic directors, he said one reason is the NCAA might be trying to avoid litigation.

“What we don’t have is enforcement of the bylaws,” Dellenger said. “As an athletic director said to me, ‘It’s as if you have the speed limit down the road, right? It’s 50 miles per hour. The guidance put the cop car back out there on the road to monitor that everyone goes 50 miles per hour or below. And everybody’s going 70. You don’t have anyone getting pulled over yet. Everybody’s kind of waiting for somebody to be made an example of.

“There’s two problems here. NCAA enforcement is understaffed. We reported several weeks ago about their staffing issues, down 15 [to] 20 people from the COVID-like layoffs, I believe. No. 2 is the fear of being sued by wealthy boosters and booster collectives for one reason, potential anti-trust stuff, and two, potentially not being able to prove that inducements are inducements. As an AD told me, ‘It can smell like an inducement, it can look like an inducement, but you’ve got to prove that it was an inducement.’ A lot of these boosters and collectives are pretty savvy in crafting their contracts. They’re going to make sure they don’t have something in there that can get them caught.”

Jimbo Fisher: Only one of Texas A&M’s 11 early enrollees have secured NIL deals

Texas A&M is a program closely associated with NIL after bringing in the nation’s No. 1 recruiting class this year, according to the On3 Consensus Team Recruiting Ranking. Last week, Alabama coach Nick Saban alleged the Aggies and coach Jimbo Fisher “bought every player on their team,” which led to a fiery response from Fisher.

Monday, Fisher doubled down, telling KSAT-TV’s Greg Simmons people have been wrong about NIL’s impact on the highly ranked recruiting class. Most notably, only one of he recruits have a deal lined up.

“Of the 11 guys we have in place that came early, one guy has an NIL deal,” Fisher said. “So all these stories you’re hearing are complete lies.”