SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. – An expedited NCAA enforcement process addressing name, image and likeness rights abuses is expected to pass as early as Monday, sources tell CBS Sports. How effective it will be — as the NIL culture chaotically spreads — is up for debate.
“We know we’re going to get lawsuits,” Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith told CBS Sports on Friday.
Smith is a member of a little-known NIL working group formed about two months ago to deal with growing questions of illicit activity. Despite the threat of legal liability, Smith said the NCAA and his subcommittee are determined to put up meaningful guardrails around NIL, which in some cases has edged close to pay-for-play.
The working group’s recommendations submitted this week primarily deal with booster involvement. Several monied boosters have developed “collectives” establish NIL opportunities for athletes. NCAA stakeholders have long been suspicious of such collectives becoming direct inducements for recruits and transfer candidates.
“What’s happening in that space is what we were all fearful of,” Smith said. “What’s going on — on campuses [with existing scholarship athletes] — currently is fine. It’s the inducement pieces. We gotta kill that. If we don’t kill that now, forget it.”
The most likely penalty for boosters, who are not compelled to cooperate in NCAA investigations, is the threat of disassociation from a school. A disassociation means a subject cannot interact with the university in any way.
Former Trojans star Reggie Bush was famously disassociated from USC for 10 years after the NCAA handed down its penalties to him in 2010.
If boosters are found to have collaborated with a program to use NIL benefits as an incentive to lure prospects to the school, the penalties could be severe, Smith said. Options include cutting scholarships, instituting recruiting restrictions and hitting programs and…
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