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Brett Broczkowski

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Brett is an associate in the firm's Health Sciences Department, resident in the Philadelphia office. In addition to his pharmaceutical practice, Brett assists and advises NCAA Division I conferences and educational institutions on matters relating to the compensation for use of student athletes' name, image, and likeness (NIL).

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This week, a federal judge in the Eastern District of Michigan dismissed a lawsuit brought by four former University of Michigan football players who claimed they had been deprived of profits derived from use of their name, image, and likeness (NIL). Judge Terrence G. Berg granted the motion to dismiss filed by defendants NCAA, the Big Ten Conference, and the Big Ten Network, holding that the statute of limitations had run on claims of all four former players.

This week, the College Sports Commission (CSC) released its first NIL Deal Flow Report, providing a snapshot of activity across its NIL Go platform, though the rollout of the data was not without issue. The report captures platform and deal activity from June 11, 2025 — the date the platform launched — through August 31, 2025. The CSC released its initial report on September 4. On September 5, the CSC issued a corrected report, indicating that the misreported results were attributable to errors made by its outside consulting firm.

As we reported last week, the College Sports Commission (CSC) issued initial guidance on how it would evaluate student-athlete NIL deals. As part of that guidance, the CSC promised to make available additional information “pending discussions with House class counsel.”

In this episode of Highway to NIL, Troutman Pepper Locke attorneys Cal Stein, Mike Lowe, and Brett Broczkowski delve into the latest guidance from the College Sports Commission (CSC) regarding name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals. They explore the criteria set by the CSC for evaluating NIL deals, including payer association, valid business purpose, and range of compensation. The discussion highlights the implications for associated entities, particularly collectives and boosters, and the potential shift in their roles due to the new guidelines.

On July 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in a 2-1 decision, overturned a preliminary injunction that would have granted University of Wisconsin cornerback Nyzier Fourqurean a fifth year of eligibility. The NCAA’s “Five-Year Rule” limits student-athletes to four seasons of competition within a five-year period. Fourqurean played four seasons: two at Grand Valley State University and two at the University of Wisconsin. The University of Wisconsin requested a waiver of the Five-Year Rule from the NCAA, citing circumstances that reduced Fourqurean’s playing time in his first season.

On Monday, a U.S. district court judge in the Southern District of New York dismissed a lawsuit brought by former Kansas basketball player Mario Chalmers and 15 other former college basketball players. The plaintiffs all played college basketball before June 15, 2016 — the proposed start date for the House settlement pending approval in the Northern District of California — meaning they would not be beneficiaries of that settlement. Accordingly, the former players sued the NCAA and the conferences in which their respective institutions competed, alleging that the defendants violated U.S. antitrust law by forcing the players to agree to amateurism rules and forgo compensation for use of their NIL while the NCAA and defendant conferences simultaneously generated revenue from use of the players’ NIL.

At the end of January, the Ivy League, a National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I conference, announced that it is opting out of the settlement reached in House v. NCAA. The settlement, which was reached as a result of negotiations among current and former student-athletes, the Autonomous Five conferences (the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12, and Southeastern Conference), and the NCAA, proposes a $2.8 billion resolution of claims against the conferences and NCAA that they unlawfully prevented student-athletes from receiving a share of various revenue streams associated with their athletic participation.