He Was the $13 Million QB Recruit. Now He’s Suing the Boosters Who Never Paid Up.
- Thread starter Mojo702
- Start date
It’ll be tossed. I don’t see any evidence in the story, just a lot of hearsay.
It's definitely a strange subject. I mean, in what order do the events need to occur? Most of these young men are now getting NIL offers on top of their scholarship offers. So would the NIL offers be signed first? I guess that could be the case, as long as there is a clause in it stating that it's only applicable in the event that the athlete signs and joins the team for a given calendar year.
It's just strange though, since the coaches aren't necessarily in charge of the NIL funds, yet it's a big part of the recruiting package these days.
It's just weird to me.
Wonder how much UGA paid him to go to Athens where he will back up Carson Beck this season. Similar situation as Dante Moore transfering to Oregon to back up Dillon Gabriel.
I really hope this goes to trial. For the NIL education alone.
I have to assume the NIL deals aren't executed until the NLI is signed. Under that pretense it seems the coaches and boosters can BS any recruit with NIL promises to lock them in early, knowing they can pull the rug out anytime before the NLI is signed. In which case, I hope the kid wins. But I think it all revolves around the NIL offer to commit and how it's made.
The simple question is what services has the athlete provided to be paid? We all know that most of these players are now being paid far beyond their actual worth. In most cases the college football players will be lucky if they can make $50K per year playing for a semi pro team, and in most cases they have zero chance of ever being paid once out of college.
I believe the kid is only suing for the difference in NIL he was promised at the first school vs. what he received at the 2nd school upon signing the NLI. Whatever happens, this whole NLI clusterfck needs to be fixed and hopefully this case is a step in that direction.
His claim is that committing to Florida under the pretense of the NIL agreement to pay 13 million affected his final NIL payment at the school he actually wound up playing for. This seems like a sour grapes play now that he is at Georgia and I cant see how he gets any money from Florida other than a quick settlement to keep Florida's NIL funding from entering open record- See Florida Georgia rivalry.
I get it. My question is legality of whether these NIL promises are binding after a kid commits, or not. Is it only binding when they sign the NLI? Nobody seems to have a grasp on that. Flipside is a kid can de-commit at any time with no penalty. I mean, maybe that kid de-committing cost that first program money bc he turned out to be AA and led the other school to a NC, so maybe they could sue him? For those reasons I think this case is important. It's a shtshow.
I think he signed an agreement with the actual company that was going to fund the NIL offer and then they terminated the agreement a day later. Im not sure if he got the 500k signing bonus that was part of signing the NIL agreement but then the owner sold the company and was going to still fund it directly through the Gator NIL fund. I get he feels like he lost a big windfall, but claiming fraud has huge implications and I suspect that him being at Georgia creates a bit of a conflict of interest for what would become part of the lawsuit discovery process (not a legal expert) as Georgia may be able to gain insider knowledge into at a minimum the funds available for NIL an how Florida creates it NIL packages.. Who they compete directly with
I sat down and read the whole article. Don't see anything that tells me he "signed" an agreement. That is huge right there, legally. All these texts are evidence, perhaps more about illegal recruiting than anything else. And I too hope it gets to court.
Funny that the kid supposedly had a "struck" a huge endorsement deal with a Miami booster first, then reneged in favor of a few more millions from Florida. Was that in writing? If so is he liable, and for what? Deals are supposed to go two ways.
Lots to unravel here, hopefully all to the detriment of NIL itself.
I thought in one of the articles I read that he had signed an agreement that was then terminated the following day, however, that may have been his letter of intent, not an NIL agreement. I do agree that the questionable part is the money going to pay off Miami boosters, although that in itself is a weird enough grey zone. The whole NIL front was supposed to be about allowing players to make money off their names and on field performance but has basically turned HS level athletes into pro players before any of their friends and family who are out selling their services know how these arrangements will affect the players. Legalized "cheating" in some cases.
The article does say that "the quarterback received a letter on Dec. 6 saying his deal had been terminated". Seems funny that he would get a letter if nothing had previously been signed, but court discovery will show all.
yeah. I think the part of the "deal has been terminated" was the direct payment by the said boosters company instead of through the NIL collective. Im sure there are reasons behind doing that from a NIL perspective vs just not wanting to pay him what was promised. The part that is also questionable is that he never showed up on campus, didn't enroll early and left Florida hanging while he was "questioning" what was going on. They were trying to also keep their other QB recruit happy and on campus and Im sure there was probably something about that relationship/competition that drove the NIL never getting executed
Talking about a $14million deal and no lawyers or contracts involved. Oh yeah, this NIL stuff is definately all above board and righteous.
What you just explained is fraudulent inducement to enter a contract. NIL contracts ARE contracts, binding under law. If you lie to a recrui to get him/her to sign the dotted line, there are actionable causes against the university or boosters
The question is proving that you lied to the recruit to get him to sign. Making offers based on playing for the university and him never playing for the university seems to be a big ? relating to these "contracts"... Also in one way he did receive compensation as his previous commitment to Miami was paid off as part of his letter of intent signing.
How can their be a lawsuit against the university though, when NIL stuff doesn't technically run through the universities? As far as I know, they can only offer the scholarship, but the NIL is sort of a 3rd party deal, even though the coaches have to have a significant amount of knowledge on the offers.
Its not against Florida.. He sued Florida's HC directly and the Gator Fund or whatever they call their NIL fund.
Same question applies to the coach though. I guess I just don't know all the details of how these NIL deals operate. Does the coach go to the NIL group and get a commitment, then the coach presents it to the kid? Or is all of the discussion on NIL done by a 3rd party?
In a way, I look forward to some of these lawsuits to flush out the details on how these work. It's not sustainable how it's going at the moment.
