The College Sports Commission is doing more this fall than clearing NIL GO submissions.
CBS Sports reports today that five to ten Power Four programs are under longer-term CSC investigations for potential cap evasion and NIL-related violations, and several of them are College Football Playoff contenders. No schools were named specifically in the report.
CSC investigators have visited campuses and conducted in-person interviews, there is no timeline for completion, and none of the long-term cases has concluded.
The probes center on third-party deals that allowed programs to spend well past the roughly $21.5 million revenue-sharing limit set by the House settlement for 2026-27. CBS compared it to the NBA's investigation of the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard, where third-party arrangements were used to get around the salary cap.
Earlier reporting by CBS Sports put seven college football rosters in the $40 million to $50 million range.
According to the reporting, on August 20, the CSC sent a memo to presidents, chancellors, athletic directors and other campus officials. "The DOI is actively conducting multiple, longer-term investigations into potential cap evasion and NIL-related violations by institutions, student-athletes, and certain third parties," the memo read, referring to the CSC's Department of Investigations. It also asked athletic department staff to report recruiting practices, agent conduct and questionable business proposals.
Many schools would like to see action taken before the transfer portal opens in January, in part as a warning shot to anyone else working the system.
The CSC is trying to do this without the tool it was supposed to have. It never got all 68 Power Four schools to sign its participation agreement, which would have forced compliance with investigations and penalties, required schools to waive the right to sue over enforcement decisions and barred them from helping state attorneys general file suit on their behalf. Multiple sources told CBS the agreement is very unlikely to ever be adopted. Schools also routinely take weeks or months to answer information requests, often through outside counsel.
"This is the hardest enforcement challenge in sports in the United States," one source told CBS. "It's not even close in my mind."
Another source pointed to deals where athletes never delivered the promised services. "We could discipline 100 student athletes tomorrow who have not fulfilled their NIL obligations," the source said. "The reality is, no one wanted them to. No one cared if they did... The fact that they didn't do the obligations shows this was a sham deal from the start. Who's the person who put together that sham deal? It's not the student athlete."
A Power Four general manager was blunter noting the CSC doesn't "have the teeth" to enforce anything," and everyone is aware of it.
The CSC does have some results on the board. It has cleared $582.5 million in deals through their NIL GO program since launch and denied $156.9 million, and it won its first arbitration case after Nebraska challenged the denial of multi-million-dollar deals involving 18 football players.
The GM's quote is the one every compliance office will read twice. If the CSC lands a real penalty on a contender before the portal opens, collectives across the country will be forced to adjust. If these cases drag into next fall with nothing to show for them, the programs spending $45 million will keep doing it, and the ones following the rules will wonder why they even bothered.
Stay tuned to The Scoop for the latest.