NIL Go · Reference
NIL Go is where Division I athletes report third-party NIL deals and where the College Sports Commission decides whether they clear. This guide covers who has to report, what reviewers check, and what you can do if a deal is turned down.
NIL Go is the online clearinghouse the College Sports Commission (CSC) built with Deloitte to review Division I athletes' third-party NIL deals. It checks whether a deal has a valid business purpose and pays within a reasonable range. It launched on June 11, 2025, under the House v. NCAA settlement.
The athlete submits the deal at NILGo.com: sport, social handles, the deal's value and obligations, and the contract or other documents. Brands and collectives don't get NIL Go logins.
Only third-party deals go through NIL Go. A payment from your own school is reported by the school in a separate system (CAPS) and counts against its revenue-sharing cap instead.
Every Division I athlete, whether or not the school opted into revenue sharing, must report third-party NIL deals once one payer's deals add up to $600 or more. The deadline is five business days after signing or agreeing to the payment terms, and missing it can cost you eligibility.
Every reported deal is checked three ways: whether the payer is associated with your school, whether the deal has a valid business purpose, and whether the pay is in line with what similar people earn. NIL Go does not calculate a fair market value for your deal; it checks whether the pay goes beyond a reasonable range.
| Test | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Associated status | Is the payer, or whoever arranged the deal, connected to your school? |
| Valid business purpose | Is the deal about promoting goods or services sold to the public for profit, using your name, image or likeness? |
| Range of compensation | Is the pay commensurate with what similarly situated people are paid? |
For the range of compensation, the CSC says it weighs the deal's obligations, your athletic performance and social reach, the local market, and the reach of your school and program.
Raising money to get athletes to enroll or stay at a school is not a valid business purpose. A deal with an associated payer must also actually use your NIL; buying the rights to it with no say in how it will be used (what the CSC calls warehousing) can fail.
Since July 1, 2026, the CSC has generally skipped the range-of-compensation check for associated deals between $600 and $15,000, unless an athlete's associated deals pass $50,000 in the academic year. Those deals still have to be reported.
An associated payer is a collective or other group that exists largely to support one school's athletes, anyone the athletics department asked to help recruit or keep athletes, anyone who has given more than $50,000 over their lifetime to the school or such a group, and businesses they own or control.
A booster isn't automatically associated, but a booster can be. Deals with associated payers get the closest look: in July and August 2026, $188.6 million of the more than $227 million cleared came from them.
Collectives may sign their own deals, as long as the deal has a valid business purpose and pays a market rate. In 2026 two federal judges also let the CSC review deals from schools' multimedia-rights partners and sponsors case by case.
A deal comes back cleared, flagged for more review, or not cleared. If it's not cleared you can revise it and resubmit, cancel it and refund any money you received, or appeal to a neutral arbitrator. Going ahead with a deal that wasn't cleared, or never reported, risks your eligibility.
| Period | Resolved within 24 hours | Resolved within 7 days |
|---|---|---|
| June 2025 to January 1, 2026 | 52% | 73% |
| July and August 2026 | — | 68% |
Clocks start once everything the reviewers need is in. A CSC spokesperson has named three reasons deals aren't cleared: no valid business purpose, pay out of line with similar athletes, and no real use of the athlete's NIL.
You have 14 days from the decision to file for arbitration. One neutral arbitrator, picked at random from a panel both sides of the House case approved, decides within about 45 days, and the decision is binding on you and the CSC. You pay no arbitration fees, and you stay eligible while it's pending.
You pay your own lawyer unless your school chooses to. The CSC's rules let JAMS, an arbitration provider, administer the cases.
The first big test came in May 2026, when an arbitrator upheld the CSC's refusal to clear about $7.5 million of deals between 18 Nebraska football players and Playfly, the school's multimedia-rights partner. The CSC later approved restructured deals for the same players.
From launch through June 30, 2026, the CSC cleared 34,195 deals worth $355.24 million and did not clear 1,812 worth $89.85 million. Rejected deals are fewer but larger: in May and June 2026 the average approved deal was $14,792 and the average rejected one $51,593.
| Period | Cleared | Value cleared | Not cleared | Value not cleared |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 11, 2025 to January 1, 2026 | 17,321 | $127.21M | 524 | $14.94M |
| June 11, 2025 to June 30, 2026 | 34,195 | $355.24M | 1,812 | $89.85M |
NIL Go is being fought in court and in Congress. A class action filed June 9, 2026 argues NIL Go and the CSC's rules break antitrust law and 17 state NIL laws. The Senate passed the Protect College Sports Act on September 28, 2026, which would write the valid-business-purpose test into federal law.
The bill passed 77 to 22 and would override conflicting state NIL laws. It isn't law: the House hasn't voted, and it dies if the House doesn't pass it by January 3, 2027. State attorneys general in Texas and Tennessee have also pushed back on the CSC's agreement with schools.
The NIL Deal Checker asks the same three questions about a proposed deal and lists what to fix. To see what your audience is worth before you negotiate, read how HDBND calculates fair market value. Neither replaces your school's compliance office.