2 Georgia student-athletes win their NIL arbitration case

The third-party NIL deals related to the Georgia student-athletes, per Yahoo, were originated by Learfield, the school’s multimedia rights partner.

The CSC announced the news Monday, noting that a neutral arbitrator issued the final determination Friday.

The deals in question had initially not been cleared by the CSC on March 6, as they fell outside the accepted range of compensation model in place at that time.

But on May 8, with the deals still pending arbitration, the CSC updated its range of compensation model to add data from other deals that had been cleared.

“As more deals are submitted and cleared, we regularly update our dataset to ensure that student-athletes receive the NIL compensation they deserve,” said Bryan Seeley, CEO of the College Sports Commission.

“We are committed to applying the rules fairly and to continuously refining the tools we use to do so. When additional data showed these deals were within range, we acted immediately to clear them.”

The University of Georgia had requested intervention in the case with hopes of litigating broader institutional questions, according to the CSC release, but the arbitrator determined that motion had no basis and denied a request to cover the school’s attorneys’ fees associated with the matter.

The CSC was created in May 2025 in an effort to provide a governing body to oversee and vet the NIL deals that athletes can secure outside of the NCAA-specified “cap.”

The cap allows the schools to pay out $22 million across its athletic department as part of the revenue-sharing agreement that came out of the House v. NCAA settlement in May 2025.

Athletes are required to submit their NIL deals that are outside of the cap — which must come from entities not associated with the university (non-boosters) — for CSC approval.