Miami defensive lineman Leonard Taylor signs lucrative NIL deal

With NIL deals being brokered left and right, it is never been a better time to be a college athlete to make money off of your own likeness. As of now, there are few limitations on how a player goes about making these kinds of deals. Some NIL deals are done with one player or with many, like with the Miami Hurricanes football team. And on Monday, another deal was announced between Hurricanes defensive lineman Leonard Taylor and LifeWallet.

The announcement was made by Malki Kawa, a sports agent, and local Miami native. He broke the news with this post from his personal Twitter account.

“Proud to announce that @JohnHRuiz and @LifeWallet has entered into another #nil deal for 50k with @56reasons_ thank you John Ruiz and the rest of the team at life wallet for your continued support for all city of Miami athletics #nil #theU #morecoming,” Kawa wrote.

The hashtag “morecoming” is fitting for this announcement. On Sunday, it was announced that the company would set aside $10 million for NIL deals. And at this current time, there have been two Miami hurricane players to sign deals to promote LifeWallet, Taylor, and safety, Gilbert Frierson. Both players’ NIL deals are for $50,000 apiece.

NCAA reviewing Oregon NIL case

According to a report by Daniel Libit of Sportico, the NCAA is investigating the Oregon Ducks for its relationship to a third-party NIL program. Oregon is one of at least three schools that are currently being investigated for NIL infractions.

As things currently stand, the NCAA is simply gathering information on Oregon’s NIL partnerships. It is not a formal infractions investigation at this point, according to Libit.

“For now, the NCAA’s NIL fact-finding has stopped short of a formal infractions investigation, and there is an open question as to whether the association would want to risk additional litigation and public backlash by punishing a school over setups that are seen to improve the livelihoods of athletes,” Libit said.

“UO has been at the national NIL vanguard, launching an on-campus program in October, dubbed Oregon Accelerator, which is designed to help athletes tap into promotional resources from the university’s business and journalism schools. That in-house initiative received financial backing from Barbara Blangiara, an Oregon alumnus and executive at Fox Sports.”

Via Libit, Oregon senior associate athletic director Jimmy Stanton said that Oregon is complying with the NCAA as they seek information about the Ducks’ NIL process.

The NCAA is also currently reviewing BYU and Miami for NIL related reasons as well.