NIL Compliance

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Last week, the NCAA launched a forensic investigation into the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) football program following public complaints alleging potential tampering involving linebacker Luke Ferrelli. Ferrelli, the ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year as a member of the University of California, Berkeley during the 2025 season, entered the transfer portal this offseason, signed a revenue-sharing contract with Clemson, then later reentered the portal and ultimately transferred to Ole Miss.

On April 20, 2026, settlement class counsel for the plaintiffs in House v. NCAA filed a motion seeking to enforce the fourth amended stipulation and settlement agreement, effectively asking the court to rein in the College Sports Commission (CSC).[1]

Just weeks ago, we reported that the College Sports Commission (CSC) would be ramping up investigations into unreported third-party NIL agreements. The CSC has since made good on that promise. On January 30, The Athletic reported that Louisiana State University’s (LSU) athletic director, Verge Ausberry, received an email from the CSC’s head of investigations, Katie B. Medearis, informing the institution that they were under investigation regarding potential failure to report multiple third-party NIL deals.  

Key Takeaway:

After decades of minimal federal activity, the Sports Agent Responsibility and Trust Act (SPARTA) is drawing renewed attention. A January 2026 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) inquiry into sports agent practices may signal a meaningful shift in enforcement — particularly in the NIL era.

On January 8, the College Sports Commission (CSC) issued guidance in direct response to a recent news report from Yahoo Sports that examined college football student-athletes being offered third-party NIL deals that violate the terms of the House settlement — making promises of third-party NIL money that does not yet exist — designed to induce transfers or retain players.

In this episode of Highway to NIL, Troutman Pepper Locke attorneys Cal Stein, Chris Brolley, and George Pla look at the post-House settlement landscape, including the revenue-sharing pool that allows schools to pay athletes up to 22% of athletic revenue. They examine how those payments may impact athletic budgets and nonrevenue sports, and how schools may seek to make up any shortfalls by, among other things, maximizing their media rights revenue through incentive-based agreements and exploring private capital investments.

The NCAA Division I Board of Directors has adopted emergency legislation that allows the College Sports Commission (CSC) to declare Division I student-athletes ineligible for failing to disclose noninstitutional name, image, and likeness (NIL) deals within five days of entering into those deals. The emergency amendment also imposes obligations on institutions that learn that a student-athlete has failed to disclose the NIL deal.

On October 8, the College Sports Commission (CSC) launched an anonymous tipline that facilitates the confidential reporting of possible violations related to third-party name, image, and likeness (NIL) agreements and revenue distribution in college athletics. This comes after Front Office Sports reported that several major power conference collectives are giving up on trying to work through the NIL Go clearinghouse established in the House v. NCAA settlement. We have previously written about the terms of the House settlement.

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.