NIL collective director slams College Sports Commission for maddening failure

The College Sports Commission sent a memorandum to Division I Athletic Directors earlier today that, at its core, clarifies and specifies how NIL Collectives can pay student-athletes. The biggest sticky point will be around the clarification of "valid business purpose" for paying athletes.

There are many deals that won't be cleared unless substantiated business purposes are provided. The pushback has already begun from all over, and lawyers are already getting their pens ready for future lawsuits.

Dalton Forysthe, an NIL Collective Director of Blue A Collective, slammed the College Sports Commission in a thread of social media posts on X. Calling the NIL Go system a failure and payments being unprocessed due to a lack of "clear and transparent guidelines."

NIL leader calls the efforts of the College Sports Commissions a "failure."

Forsythe has many bones to pick, but he focuses mainly on the NIL GO system and the frustration of the new language around "valid business purposes." His rant includes how the system is frequently down and thus unable to process payments, deals were reviewed slowly and sometimes even timed out, and the arbitrary way things were handled.

The biggest frustration and why he's bringing this up on social media is that the goal of NIL is now being undermined and unfulfilled. The guidelines have changed so much and are so frustrating that they are no longer helping student athletes the way NIL is supposed to.

"This is not a fair or functional system for athletes, schools, or collectives. Without clarity and collaboration, the current path undermines the very goal of NIL: empowering student-athletes."

- Dalton Forsythe

The system is broken, and even though the College Sports Commission feels as if it has taken a step forward, if the NIL GO isn't working, then the red flag continues to be waved about how broken things continue to be. Forsythe says at the end of his thread that he vows to help get it "handled" and that he and his team are working with the Athletic Administration on solutions.

For college sports fans everywhere, that's ultimately the goal: a system that works. It doesn't have to be perfect, but that works, has guidelines, solutions, and ultimately serves college athletics for the betterment of the players and the sport.