One year ago, former MLB executive Bryan Seeley was in the midst of a new project. Sitting at “a small desk in my bedroom in Hoboken, New Jersey,” he launched the new college sports enforcement entity, the College Sports Commission.
“I was one person,” he told a group of reporters at the SEC spring meetings in Destin, Fla., last month. “My five-month-old baby was sleeping—or not sleeping as the case may be—in the bedroom next door.”
The CSC was launched alongside the House v. NCAA settlement, which allowed Division I schools to “revenue-share” with players for the first time, and set new restrictions on NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals. The NIL deal reporting platform, NIL Go, launched a year ago.
“We’ve got a staff of 20 very highly accomplished people. We have an office in Tyson’s Corner, Va. We have updated the NIL Go system with the help of Deloitte to make it much better for users. We have implemented rules, we have made a lot of decisions on first impression,” Seeley said. “We have made a ton of progress.”
But after 12 months, the system continues to experience problems, from long wait times and questions over enforcement power to rule disputes and even a new lawsuit. Meanwhile, the “revenue-sharing cap” has not acted as a salary cap; the cost of a football or basketball roster is higher than ever.
