ANALYSIS: Why the Nebraska NIL ruling may validate Michigan State’s approach

Writing about Michigan State Athletics is weird these days. Having to read court orders and arbitration rulings and trying to figure out how they affect MSU (or how they don't) is a sign of the new world of collegiate athletics we find ourselves in.

It may be a tad on the boring side, yes, but - ultimately - these issues are going to really determine who is set up to succeed in the new reality that college sports is becoming ... and who is not.

The good news for Spartan fans is that the first major arbitration ruling of the post-House settlement era appears to have delivered more than a victory for the College Sports Commission (CSC). It provided much-needed clarity for schools navigating the new revenue-sharing system - and, in many ways, validated Michigan State’s measured approach.

In case you weren't following along - and, honestly, good for you if you weren't - a neutral arbitrator ruled in favor of the CSC in a case involving 18 Nebraska football players whose third-party NIL deals with Playfly were rejected by the NIL Go clearinghouse.

The decision affirmed a few key principles:

- Multimedia-rights partners like Playfly can be treated as “associated entities” subject to heightened scrutiny

- NIL agreements must have a legitimate business purpose

- “Warehousing” NIL rights for undefined future use violates House settlement rules

If all of that doesn't mean much to you, the average sports fan, that's ok. I'll try to break it down a bit and explain why it shows that MSU appears to be in a good position moving forward.

The ruling directly challenged the aggressive strategies used by other universities who redirected sponsor money to expand payrolls beyond the revenue-sharing cap. It emphasized that school-connected entities cannot simply promise large future sums without actually showing how the student-athletes were going to deliver the business value part of the deal by actually using their name, image, and likeness to provide real market value to business entities.

If you back up, you'll see there is a clear divide in college athletics right now: programs pushing boundaries with loosely disguised compensation versus those building sustainable, compliant structures.

Michigan State, under Athletic Director J Batt, has positioned itself firmly in the latter group through its approach, including the upcoming launch of Spartan Ventures (and Spartan Media Ventures).

Unlike the Nebraska model the arbiter ruled against, Michigan State is creating what appears to be legitimate long-term business infrastructure around athletics.

Spartan Media Ventures will centralize and expand media, content, production, sponsorship, and commercial operations. It will focus on monetizing audience attention, fan engagement, subscriptions, branded content, live programming, and digital distribution.

That might make the average football or basketball or soccer or gymnastics fan yawn, but it actually really matters in today's approach to college athletics. Why? Because modern NIL depends on real commercial ecosystems - and this ruling reinforces that.

The more genuine media inventory, distribution channels, sponsor relationships, and engagement opportunities a school builds, the easier it becomes to structure defensible NIL deals tied to actual value - rather than artificial payments.

The Nebraska ruling reinforced that NIL cannot function as disguised payroll routed through affiliates without real activation of the player's name, image, and likeness tied to a real business purpose.

By contrast, platforms like Spartan Media Ventures can generate sponsor value, measurable impressions, content partnerships, and promotional opportunities connected directly to athletes’ name, image, and likeness - and these arrangements stand a much stronger chance under CSC scrutiny.

It's important to note that Spartan Media Ventures is not replacing Michigan State’s relationship with Playfly. Instead, it creates a hybrid approach:

- Playfly continues handling traditional multimedia rights, including sponsorship sales, signage, radio inventory, and event-tied assets.

- Spartan Media Ventures acts as an accelerator for new opportunities in content, branding, digital distribution, athlete storytelling, subscription products, and emerging media that don’t fit neatly within traditional university structures.

As I've written about before, this structure gives MSU operational flexibility that public universities often lack due to procurement rules, bureaucracy, and oversight requirements.

Recent examples like the Spartans Mobile launch (in partnership with Playfly Sports and Collegiate Mobile) show how traditional and new entities can coexist productively.

Spartan Ventures will serve as the revenue, innovation, and development arm for Michigan State Athletics. Its benefits will include:

1. Sustainable Revenue Generation: Creates scalable income streams to support direct revenue-sharing payments and rising roster costs, reducing over-reliance on donor fundraising.

2. Defensible NIL Opportunities: Ties deals to real business activity - branded content, sponsorship integrations, premium experiences, appearances, and measurable deliverables - making them far easier to defend than vague future promises.

3. Operational Agility: Enables faster, more creative commercial decisions while maintaining institutional oversight and compliance.

It is becoming clear that structure matters as much as financial access. Schools can no longer assume school-connected NIL mechanisms will automatically survive scrutiny simply because athletes are being paid.

Michigan State’s model - focused on expanding legitimate revenue, commercializing intellectual property, deepening sponsor relationships, and generating NIL tied to genuine activity - appears well-aligned with the direction the sport is heading.

As more legal challenges test the House settlement, the Nebraska decision signals that guardrails exist and are being enforced. In that environment, Michigan State’s emphasis on building real commercial infrastructure looks increasingly valuable.

Perhaps we can all soon get back to writing less about this sort of stuff, and more about the athletic endeavors on the field.