What was up at the NCAA convention? Let us fill you in.

We’ve made it to the weekend. Hooray!

I’m back home now after a productive few days at the NCAA convention outside Washington, D.C. It was great seeing old friends, meeting new ones and getting useful information. In today’s post, I’ll deviate a bit from our usual aggregation and share some of the reporting and information I learned at the convention, with more to come on Tuesday.

Enjoy.

— Kyle

THE BIG 3

The CSC wants schools to stick out their necks. Will they?

Standing in front of an overflow crowd at the Gaylord National Resort, Bryan Seeley, the CEO of the still-finding-its-footing College Sports Commission, delivered a passionate 10-minute monologue that felt part pep talk, part plea. He thanked campus leaders who have already signed on to the CSC’s participation agreement while nudging the rest to stop waiting on the sidelines.

“If there was a time to stick out your neck,” Seeley told the room, “it’s now.”

That pretty much sums up where the CSC finds itself. The seven-month-old organization has spent the past couple of months trying to get all 68 power conference schools to sign an 11-page agreement that lays out how the CSC would enforce NIL rules. Signing means schools agree to cooperate with investigations and promise not to sue over CSC rulings. Shockingly, that ask hasn’t gone over smoothly. 

Attorneys general in several states have advised schools not to sign. But presidents from Arizona, Georgia, Virginia Tech and Washington released a joint statement earlier this week urging their peers to get on board. The divide has created a standoff of sorts. 

“My sense is that the vast majority of schools want to sign this,” Seeley said. “But I suspect if a school wants this, you’re thinking, ‘Why am I going to stick my neck out?’”

After a Q&A session with administrators, Seeley spoke with a small group of reporters and struck a measured tone. He doesn’t think college sports is collapsing or beyond repair. But he does think the problems are real and, more importantly, that no outside force is coming to clean them up.

“Stability is not created by new rules alone,” Seeley said, “but by a willingness to live by those rules.”

There have been discussions about tweaking the language in the agreement, though Seeley was clear it can’t be watered down to the point of meaninglessness. At the heart of the debate is what actually happens if a school refuses to sign, or worse, decides to challenge the CSC in court. Could the organization survive a legal fight before it fully establishes itself? And looming over this particular drama is the possibility of collective bargaining, which could render the CSC obsolete. 

None of this frustration is new. Schools have been openly wondering when enforcement will finally feel real, when someone will be punished. That moment, Seeley suggested, may be getting closer.

The CSC has contacted schools about potential NIL and revenue-sharing issues, he said.

“That will come in due time, and I understand why the schools want to see that,” Seeley said. “Schools that want to comply with the rules and want to push back on third parties who don’t care about the rules, they need something to point to. But that is going to take some time, and you have to be careful about how public you’re being about your investigations.”

Much of the concern centers on deals tied to multimedia rights holders, NIL agreements that may never be reported to NIL Go or approved through the proper channels. It’s a red flag for the CSC. The goal is fair-market value, not pay-for-play.

“If we saw a social media post of a student-athlete promoting something, and we saw no corresponding deal on NIL Go,” Seeley said, “we would look into that. And candidly, we have seen some of those things, and we are starting to look into that.”

For now, the CSC is asking schools to trust the process. Whether enough of them do may determine whether this latest experiment in college sports governance ever gets off the ground.

And speaking of the CSC: Does it matter if no one likes it?

Let’s be honest: enforcement bodies in college sports don’t exactly inspire warm feelings.

The NCAA has been unpopular with fans and schools for years, and now the CSC is starting to drift into that same territory. Schools are hesitant to sign the CSC’s participation agreement. There’s grumbling about NIL Go approvals. And plenty of people are still trying to figure out what, exactly, the CSC is supposed to be doing right now.

It got me wondering: how much does it actually matter whether the CSC is liked? Is there a difference between being unpopular and being outright resented? I asked Seeley about the CSC’s reputation and if it was important to not be disliked.

“If you go into enforcement expecting to be liked, you’ve chosen the wrong career path,” he said.

And he’s not wrong. Seeley was blunt about what the CSC’s job is and what it isn’t. Being liked doesn’t make the list. Fairness does. Speed does. Having a process that schools believe in does.

“Our job is not to be liked,” Seeley said. “Our job is to be fair. Our job is to move quickly. Our job is to have a consistent approach to investigations.”

That doesn’t mean people are going to walk away happy. Disappointment is baked into the process.

“When you disappoint people, they are not going to like you,” Seeley said. “They are often going to think it’s unfair. If at the end of an investigation someone tells me, ‘I really disagree with your decision, but you were fair, and I agreed with the process that got here,’ I’ll take it. But I do not expect the CSC to be liked.”

Don’t expect Seeley to lose sleep over whether the CSC ends up on anyone’s Christmas card list. This is a former federal prosecutor and MLB rules enforcer. His skin is thicker than an alligator’s hide. What he does care about is whether schools believe enforcement is real and whether they think the rules actually matter.

That’s the only popularity contest that matters.

Women’s flag football is a no-brainer at the college level

The very first conversation I had after arriving at the convention was about women’s flag football. That wasn’t a coincidence. And it certainly wasn’t the last time the topic came up over the course of the week.

Women’s flag football has real momentum, with institutional backing and grassroots demand. The NFL and USA Football are all in. And the 2028 Olympic debut in Los Angeles is the headline event everyone points to, but the growth in college is equally important.

On Wednesday, the Division I cabinet approved adding flag football to the Emerging Sports for Women program, setting it on the same pathway that rowing, hockey, water polo, bowling, beach volleyball and wrestling followed before becoming NCAA championship sports. Two days later, Nebraska added women’s flag football as the school’s 25th varsity sport.

You can already see schools and conferences positioning themselves ahead of the curve. The Eastern College Athletic Conference’s decision to launch a women’s flag football league in 2026, backed by a $1 million investment from the New York Jets, wasn’t just ambitious, it was strategic. Several D-I conferences, including those at the FBS level, have discussed the sport, and smaller D-I schools (Alabama State, Long Island, Mercyhurst, Mount St. Mary’s, UT Arlington, Cal Poly) have already moved from conversation to commitment.

Divisions II and III are a bit further along in execution. The D-III Atlantic East Conference became the first NCAA conference to hold a season last year, and the early feedback has been telling. Some administrators see flag football as a legitimate enrollment driver. Others argue the impact may not match sports like rowing, but even they tend to agree the upside is real and the barriers to entry are relatively low.

This is a story worth watching closely, and it’s one I’ll continue to revisit. But I don’t think this requires much projection. With the NFL fully invested, an Olympic platform on the horizon and participation numbers that already include roughly 20 million players worldwide and nearly 2 million girls in the US, women’s flag football isn’t knocking on the varsity door anymore.

It’s already inside the building.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

What are the odds?

The college basketball world was rocked on Thursday by the largest point-shaving scandal in NCAA history. This tweet from Ivetta Abramyan, who follows mid-major hoops closely, captured the scheme in real time! Kennesaw State’s Simeon Cottle, the Conference USA preseason player of the year, is averaging 20 points per game. But he has been suspended after being implicated in the scheme. The game below is from the 2024-25 season.

NIL BLITZ

♦️ Jersey patches were the topic du jour early in the week at the NCAA convention. The Division I cabinet ended up not taking a vote on the matter. But NCAA president Charlie Baker isn’t concerned about the legislation’s status, telling a handful of reporters: “I still think the jersey patch piece is going to be resolved, and it’s going to be resolved in time to meet the August deadline. I’m not worried about that.”

♦️ The NCAA scored a legal victory in a key eligibility lawsuit, as a Tennessee judge denied a preliminary injunction in the Patterson v. NCAA case.

♦️ Football Scoop’s Zach Barnett detailed Oregon State’s assistant coach staff pool, which is nearly $2 million less than the previous staff.

♦️ Some FBS schools have told the NCAA not to share their annual athletic financial information with the College Sports Commission. The motive is unknown because the schools in question are public universities, making their data public record.

♦️ U.S. Reps. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Michael Baumgartner (R-WA) urged the NCAA to limit the role of private equity in college athletics. 

♦️ Tennessee AD Danny White says the Vols won’t cheat in NIL like other schools. OK then.

♦️ South Carolina legislators are set to pass an amendment making revenue-sharing contracts between universities and athletes private.

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BATTER UP

Today’s Poll Question:

Last Edition’s Poll Results:

Should athletes have to pay buyouts if they break their NIL contracts?

• Yes - 77%

• No - 23%