Tennessee under investigation
- Thread starter Sparklecity
- Start date
Crossing fingers.
But I have no confidence the NCAA will do anything meaningful.
But I have no confidence the NCAA will do anything meaningful.
Well their state laws directly contradict the NCAA bylaws. So technically, the NCAA could investigate every single NIL recipient they have. I wonder if we'll start to see this more and more until the NCAA can get a W in the courts?
Seems it's centered around Nico. Just thinking aloud, even though the NCAA can't really compel UT to follow NIL guidelines that contradict state law, can they restrict playing time eligibility? In other words, you can give him a scholarship, you can give him NIL, but he's not going to be eligible to compete in a NCAA sanctioned event. If so, that's going to be devastating for UT.
Well I'm just SHOCKED by the whole situation! I CAN'T BELIEVE Tennessee would do anything to break the rules!
Nico is the whole reason UT is getting hype next season. Best comment I've seen so far is "Nico is definitely Imaleaving".
As much as I'd like to see them go down with NCAA violations - this whole NIL world is so convoluted right now, I don't know how you hold any school responsible for these things. The NCAA cannot stop player from earning NIL money, however, they still have the ability to keep a school from using NIL money as a recruiting "inducement." But how can you possibly navigate that? A kid would need to know what a school will do for them NIL wise before they commit. Just like they'll need to know about living quarters, what type of training table the school has compared to other schools, etc.
This feels like a pissing match. TN state law says that UT coaches can set up NIL deals for players. Also says collectives can be involved in the direct recruitment of HS players. Both of those go against NCAA regulations. I just think the NCAA is going to keep chopping at these until they win one. And one state that didn't have all their ducks in a row will cause the house of cards to fall when they lose to the NCAA.
I don't really see how state law can negate NCAA regulations. If all a state has to do is pass a state law saying it's ok to do something, regardless of NCAA regulations, then they could pass laws making anything legal. Shoot, they could say TDs scored by UT at home are worth 500 points.
When I comes to NIL, that's basically what happened. The NCAA was neutered by SCOTUS.
Well, the Supreme Court ONLY ruled education-tethered benefits. The NCAA then passed NIL rules following the SCOTUS decision, but NIL was not a component of the SCOTUS ruling. Specifically the SCOTUS ruling involved non-cash, education-related compensation.
So nothing in SCOTUS impacts NIL and the NCAA rules stand on their own.
This is a good summary of the NIL timeline.
NIL rules for college athletes: A timeline of how we got here and what’s next
Part of a deep look at NIL rights and how the new rules have allowed college athletes in Georgia to make money from their name, image and likeness. From the sports staff of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March 2022.
Notably: "Although the case, Alston vs. NCAA, doesn’t directly involve NIL or pay-for-play, the court’s decision is seen as setting the stage for further legal challenges to rules limiting athlete compensation."
NCAA still regulates NIL. I don't see any reason to think state laws superseded NCAA regulations anymore than they did prior to NIL. States were passing NIL laws, but none of it went into effect until the NCAA changed the rules.
Yes and no. Internships fall in the non-cash compensation by the University. There were several states already on the verge of passing laws that that gave students access to NIL. Had SCOTUS sided with the NCAA, the NCAA wouldn't have changed it's stance and those states' laws would have been challenged. But SCOTUS agreed with the lower courts which said the NCAA was in violation of antitrust law in their restrictions on "non-cash compensation for academic-related purposes". SCOTUS made it possible for, say, Nike to offer a $500K internship through Oregon for certain players. While they didn't call it NIL, they paved the way for it. There was nothing the NCAA could do at that point.
The only reason the NCAA changed it is because they knew they didn't have a leg to stand on. The only defense the NCAA had was that they were exempt from anti-trust laws because they are preserving amateurism. SCOTUS blew up that defense, and agreed with the lower courts that they were in fact in violation of anti-trust laws.This is a good summary of the NIL timeline.
NIL rules for college athletes: A timeline of how we got here and what’s next
Part of a deep look at NIL rights and how the new rules have allowed college athletes in Georgia to make money from their name, image and likeness. From the sports staff of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in March 2022.www.ajc.com
Notably: "Although the case, Alston vs. NCAA, doesn’t directly involve NIL or pay-for-play, the court’s decision is seen as setting the stage for further legal challenges to rules limiting athlete compensation."
NCAA still regulates NIL. I don't see any reason to think state laws superseded NCAA regulations anymore than they did prior to NIL. States were passing NIL laws, but none of it went into effect until the NCAA changed the rules.
The NCAA can try to regulate as much as they can, but they don't have much legal authority to do so.
Well, I don’t want to go too far down the rabbit trail on that discussion. As it is pertinent to the current topic, though, the NCAA passed the NIL rules on their own, so they still control it. State rules did not supersede NCAA regulations prior to the creation of NIL rules so I don’t see why they would now.
We can speculate, of course, but it seems entirely likely that the NCAA did create NIL rules in response to the Alston ruling, but the Alston ruling did not mandate NIL. As such the NCAA is under no legal obligation at the present time to do anything with NIL and their restrictions still apply. Will they be challenged in court? Certainly, at some point. But they have not yet, so the restrictions, whatever they are, still apply.
NIL laws were being passed by states left and right before the NCAA changed their rules, but none of them enabled athletes to start collecting NIL bc the NCAA still said it wasn’t allowed.
There's not really any need to argue it, bc states have passed laws that are outside of the guidelines of the NCAA. But I do think that's what is going to happen here with UT. In order for the NCAA to prove any sort of authority when it comes to this stuff, they're going to have to challenge it.
Now that Harbaugh has fled the scene, we need another deserving criminal and TN already has the appropriately colored attire.
It seems to me that any school can "legally" violate a lot of NCAA rules. NCAA rules are not laws, they are rules agreed upon by an association of members relating to how the associations members conduct themselves regarding athletics. The state of TN can make it legal for UT to have private flights to games for players families, free lodging and food for player friends and families and buy homes for players parents. In fact, those things are already "legal" as far as the law goes. The NCAA can have rules against all of that and enforce those rules within the framework of the association's enforcement ability. Like someone said above, the NCAA can simply say that a player who was paid NIL money in HS to come to a certain school is ineligible to play in any NCAA events. The player can keep the money and the scholarship but he can't play in any NCAA sanctioned games. Players do not have any sort of constitutional "right" to play football in an NCAA sanctioned game.
All very true, I think. Where it will come to a head is when the NCAA tries to take action and gets sued. All of this will have to get litigated. The NCAA did recently have a big W when they ruled that a couple of basketball kids were ineligible bc they got paid contracts from Overtime Elite. The kids sued and courts sided with the NCAA.
I think UT's biggest issue here will be that they're currently serving punishments for recruiting shenanigans under Pruitt. This puts them in repeat violator territory.
State laws obviously do not circumvent NCAA guidelines. If they did, then schools in those states that had passed NIL laws would have started paying student athletes NIL but none of them did until the NCAA change their rules.
That's exactly what UT and other universities are doing though. Their state laws have said the coaches can be directly involved in NIL deals with SAs. I'm assuming that's where this investigation is coming from. So we'll find out soon enough. I'm not sure if any of those state laws were actually passed before the NCAA changed. But if they knew the NCAA was looking at it, I can see them waiting anyway just to be sure.
Multiple sports = the ladies swim team is gonna get hammered with sanctions
UT's best and most effective defense against the allegations will probably be that the NCAA has been sloppy and inconsistent in their implementation of NIL, making it hard, if not impossible, to know what is/isn't permissible.
I agree. If they are victorious, I’m going to use the same defense with the IRS. How do you think that will go??