NCAA Legal Thread

[GoBearcats31]

From Matt Jones, Kentucky Sports Radio:

Kentucky Football placed on two years probation and will have to vacate games after the use of ineligible players for 2 plus years. NCAA said school had no knowledge This is the case where 11 players were paid for work they did not do at jobs in Lexington

Kentucky Football will not have to sit out any Bowl games during the two year probation period The violations were all Level 2 but led to vacation of games because the players became technically ineligible when they were paid for jobs that they did not perform

All of the actions that led to the UK Football probation would have been perfectly legal under new rules (it would just be characterized as a NIL deal) but they occurred before the rules

[Lobot]

Here's what was in it.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/...-federal-court

[Lobot]

Per the new BIg 10 commish, the House settlement will be filed in court this week.

Filing expected on Friday per Ross Dellenger

[Lobot]

The House case settlement is in danger. Houston Christian U, an FCS school, has filed an objection to the plan.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/558...caa-challenge/

Houston Christian's objection has been dismissed by the judge.

[Lobot]

Per the new BIg 10 commish, the House settlement will be filed in court this week.

[red_n_black_attack]

Appeals court ruling has athletes pegged as employees deserving of compensation.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/...etes-employees

Wow, this opens up several questions that don't yet seem to be addressed in the fact finding cases set to begin/resume. If student athletes are going to be counted similar to student employees working in the bookstore, library, or teaching assistants or grad students on stipend, then how will fair pay be determined for each type of student emplyee. Campuses do this differently today, but most have some sort of leveling system to pay entry levels less and advanced levels more, but everyone on campus at a certain level gets the same. Will a new level be created, and will student employees ask for more in some sort of collective bargaining?

Where does it stop? Most kids begin amateur athletics and have to pay the organizations, and have fundraisers to supprt cost of equipment/travel. At some point, the kids don't pay because the revenue generated from attendance covers most of the school/organization costs. However, some of the bigger high school programs generate a ton of money for the school, and under this type of ruling they would be considered employees. Furthermore, can you have paid high school athletes compete against non-paid high school athletes.

Pandora's Box is open and bottomless.

[Lobot]

Does that mean the university can have them sign a non-compete clause?

Probably not since the legality of non-competes is under review with the Dept of Labor. I think non-competes got shot down a while back but it might still be going through the appeals process.

[bearcatbret]

Appeals court ruling has athletes pegged as employees deserving of compensation.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/...etes-employees

Does that mean the university can have them sign a non-compete clause?

[Lobot]

Appeals court ruling has athletes pegged as employees deserving of compensation.

https://www.espn.com/college-sports/...etes-employees

[Lobot]

Schools such as HCU are in a real Catch-22 situation. If they decide to participate in paying their players, they risk financial ruin for the athletics departments. They don't draw huge TV cash and don't pack large stadia. If they decide to forego paying players, they will become even more irrelevant than they are now. Many schools may need to downgrade to D2/D3.

Yep and it's likely a lot of FCS schools are going to hop on the bandwagon for this settlement challenge.

[swilsonsp4]

The House case settlement is in danger. Houston Christian U, an FCS school, has filed an objection to the plan.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/558...caa-challenge/

Schools such as HCU are in a real Catch-22 situation. If they decide to participate in paying their players, they risk financial ruin for the athletics departments. They don't draw huge TV cash and don't pack large stadia. If they decide to forego paying players, they will become even more irrelevant than they are now. Many schools may need to downgrade to D2/D3.

[Lobot]

The House case settlement is in danger. Houston Christian U, an FCS school, has filed an objection to the plan.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/558...caa-challenge/

[Lobot]

The NCAA has a new angle today which might kill off a couple of court cases for the NCAA. The D1 NCAA Rules committee recommended that the injuction put in place from Dave Yost's case regarding multi-time transfers will remain in place.

Players will be allowed to transfer freely to another school provided they are in good academic standing at the current school and making progress toward their degree when enrolling in a new school.

The full NCAA membership will vote on this on 4/22

This has been been permanaently enjoined. Free transfers for everybody

[Lobot]

I doubt NIL and revenue sharing will be subject to Title IX. I mean some guys get paid more than other guys because they have more NIL value; they simply bring more return to the investors using their NIL. I think the thing in Title IX that isn't going to be an issue is that all athletes have the right and opportunity to market their NIL value, which will be different athlete to athlete.

That may be the case.

I've heard and read a number of articles on putting in place an NIL "salary cap" for schools (not directly on players) . All parties need to figure that out and it has to wait until athletes eventually become employees and have representation to negotiate it.

This thread is going to get really long eventually because there are so many parties with angles to iron out and I'm sure there will be more lawsuits filed along the way. This could have all been in the works for years and it still wouldn't be a smooth transition.

[red_n_black_attack]

Don't know.

What I suspect from the House settlement is that NIL collectives will be dragged in house to Athletic departments most likely. That's the only way to deal with Title IX and keep things reasonably equitable between revenue and non revenue sports if in fact that's what you want to do. NIL collectives are not beholden to Title IX, I don't think. I could be wrong.

Regardless or whether I"m right or wrong, Cincy Reigns, Altius folks, etc. seem to be finding good avenues for non revenue sport athletes for NIL contracts

I doubt NIL and revenue sharing will be subject to Title IX. I mean some guys get paid more than other guys because they have more NIL value; they simply bring more return to the investors using their NIL. I think the thing in Title IX that isn't going to be an issue is that all athletes have the right and opportunity to market their NIL value, which will be different athlete to athlete.