What’s in a (domain) name?

Within an hour of Judge Claudia Wilken having granted final approval of the House v. NCAA settlement, the newly established College Sports Commission’s website went live, featuring a homepage headline declaring “a new day in college sports” beside a picture of female water polo players.

The commission, which was established by the NCAA’s Power Five conferences—the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC and Pac-12—to police college athlete NIL transactions, registered as a Delaware limited liability company in April, as Sportico was first to report.

This sets the College Sports Commission (CSC) apart from the numerous nationally recognized “commissions,” many of which are government agencies—such as the FEC, FTC, FCC and the other SEC—or federally recognized nonprofit organizations exempt from income tax.

Aside from a small number of postseason football bowl games, the CSC is also unique in being the only for-profit governing body, association or multi-school organization in college sports. That means unlike the NCAA, its member intuitions and major conferences—all of which are federally registered 501(c)(3) organizations—the commission is not legally bound to operate for exclusively charitable purposes; does not have to publicly disclose its annual tax return (that includes financial details such as its annual legal expenditures or the compensation of its new CEO, Bryan Seeley); and faces no restrictions on its involvement in political campaigns.

However, the CSC’s website lends a different impression, starting with its URL: www.CollegeSportsCommission.org. Although any entity can register or use dot-org domain extensions, they typically and historically are associated with nonprofits. Notably, if paradoxically, all but one of the P5 conferences (BigTen.org) now employ dot-com domains for their official sites (SECSports.com, Big12Sports.com, theACC.com and Pac-12.com) even though each of the leagues are 501(c)(3) charities.

In an email, a commission spokesperson told Sportico that despite its legal structure, it is “not intended to be a for-profit company.”

The CSC obtained its website’s URL on April 2—a week-and-a-half before its Delaware LLC was formed. Simultaneously, as confirmed by the spokesperson, it also obtained a dot-com version. Nevertheless, CollegeSportsCommission.com is currently a parked domain that does not redirect to the active, dot-org site.

On its FAQ page, the CSC describes itself as “the organization overseeing the new system that allows schools to share revenue directly with student-athletes and ensures that NIL deals made with student-athletes are fair and comply with the rules.” While it distinguishes itself from the NCAA, the current version of the site offers little clarity about who controls the commission or how it is structured. Notably, its official legal name—College Sports Commission LLC—does not appear anywhere on the site, including in the “Terms of Service” or “Privacy Policy.”

Meanwhile, the website for the NIL Go system, managed by Deloitte, uses a dot-com domain name. According to the CSC spokesperson, the domain was initially purchased by Deloitte on behalf of the joint NCAA/P5 settlement implementation committee, and is now in the process of transferring ownership to the commission. Meanwhile, the dot-com website for the College Athlete Payments (CAP) platform, developed by LBi Software and “overseen” by the commission, is owned by LBi.