Do college football coaches think new enforcement arm will work? LSU's Brian Kelly: 'It is not a slap on the wrist'
By: Ross Dellenger - Yahoo! SportsBATON ROUGE, La. — Brian Kelly entered last week’s joint meeting with SEC athletic directors admittedly skeptical of major college football’s new enforcement entity.
He left convinced that it would work.
“There will be real enforcement,” Kelly told Yahoo Sports in an interview last week. “It will be an across-the-board, consistent (power conference) enforcement with severe sanctions. They will be quick. They will be swift. I think everybody is on board with that.”
The new power conference-led enforcement entity — an LLC with a yet-to-be-named CEO — is poised to implement significant penalties for those violating a variety of revenue share-related rules, including a restriction in the number of transfers a program can add, millions in financial fines, a reduction in a team’s future rev-share pool and multi-game suspensions for coaches.
These are only ideas and concepts under discussion, but they were shared with coaches and athletic directors last week in meetings in New Orleans as power conference leaders work to create this nameless, non-NCAA enforcement entity. Yahoo Sports first reported details about the entity on Feb. 6, but more specifics are emerging.
Under the landmark House settlement agreement, schools will be permitted to share $20.5 million in revenue annually with athletes under a capped system with built-in escalators. The revenue-sharing concept is expected to begin July 1 if the settlement is approved this spring (a final hearing is scheduled for April 7).
Leaders are socializing particulars of one of the most important aspects of the House settlement-related provision permitting schools to share revenue directly with athletes: the enforcement arm.
Will all of this actually be policed?
“Suspensions are on the table. Fines. It is not a slap on the wrist. That was made clear,” Kelly told Yahoo Sports in an interview from his office Thursday.
Other coaches and administrators shared details of the enforcement entity as well. A transition team of athletic directors and general counsels from the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12 are establishing new rules around the revenue-sharing concept as well as penalties for violating those rules, such as those found to have exceeded the annual rev-share cap, those tampering with players under contract at other schools and those circumventing the cap by using boosters to compensate athletes.
Those exceeding the cap will endure financial fines of three to five times the amount that has been exceeded and could see their following year’s total rev-share pool reduced by the exceeded amount. For example, if a school exceeds the cap by $1 million in 2025-26, it could be fined as much as $5 million, plus its pool for 2026-27 would be reduced by $1 million.
But, perhaps, there is even a stiffer penalty under discussion: The new enforcement arm may reduce the amount of transfer players that a school could add to its roster, multiple coaches and administrators confirmed to Yahoo Sports.
Separately, administrators are finalizing details related to the new Deloitte-run clearinghouse tasked with evaluating name, image and likeness (NIL) compensation that athletes receive from third-party entities, such as brands, businesses and also boosters.
Athletes must submit to the clearinghouse all third-party deals of $600 or more. Those deals that are deemed to be struck with a school-affiliated entity — NIL collective, school marketing arm, booster-owned business, school foundation, multi-media rights partner, etc. — will undergo more scrutiny as part of Deloitte’s fair market value analysis. All payments made to athletes after June are expected to be subject to the new clearinghouse.
Deloitte is using thousands of previously struck NIL deals of college and NFL players in developing a “compensation range” to determine if deals are authentic. Deloitte is expected to approve or disapprove deals in as little as one day, and, in a plan under discussion, athletes can resubmit rejected deals at least once with alterations suggested by the clearinghouse.
For example, Deloitte deems a submitted $100,000 deal between an athlete and third party to actually be valued at $50,000. The player can alter the deal to align with the clearinghouse’s suggested fair market value figure.
“This is a fair process,” Kelly said. “Deloitte has thousands of NIL deals, from the smallest of deals like representing a health club to national Powerade commercials, with ranges of compensation for all.”
Deals rejected for a second time are referred to the CEO and enforcement staff and are then processed through an appeals system via court-overseen arbitration. Athletes will remain eligible until their case is through arbitration. Arbitration rulings are expected within 45 days, according to the settlement.
Athletes who lose arbitration cases and still accept compensation in the rejected deal are deemed ineligible.
Coaches are “embracing” these new rules, Kelly said.
“We’ve been living in a world with no rules and the enforcement has been slow and inconsistent,” he said. “More than anything else as coaches, we live by rules. We’re now going to get what we asked for.”
However, as explored in a story last month, many of those within and outside the college sports industry expect these rules and penalties to draw more legal action. Based on objections filed against the settlement, potential legal issues range from anti-competitive challenges over the capped revenue figure; Title IX lawsuits over the distribution of revenue (most schools plan to distribute about 90% to football and men’s basketball); and challenges over clearinghouse decisions.
College executives have continued their lobbying effort on Capitol Hill in hopes of encouraging lawmakers to draft a bill that permits them to enforce rules without legal entanglements.
“Even with the new settlement, we are going to still be peppered with challenges and lawsuits,” Mississippi State president Mark Keenum, head of the College Football Playoff executive board, told Yahoo Sports last month. “When our clearinghouse tells an athlete that your fair market deal isn’t fair market and their representatives challenge that in court, you need more than ever a legal, congressional resolution to this.”
