Question about NIL
A friend of mine posed an interesting question to me. Let's say someone like Tybo Rogers was paid $200,000 to play for the Huskies. But after a few months he gets accused of a crime and is booted off the roster. Does he have any legal obligation to pay back the $$?
Comments
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It's a decent question.
I also wonder, once the players become actual employees like it seems like they are moving towards, what kind of liability does that open up for his employer.
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It's one of the many mysterious about NIL. I have no fucking clue. I do assume that it's likely they're getting paid over time not a lump sum at once so my best guess is he keeps what he's been paid then doesn't get the rest. I think this comes up a lot when wondering what happens when a player transfers. I do remember hearing at USC and Florida and some other programs players talking about not actually getting the money they were promised or late etc so I think there's tomfoolery on both sides.
I would say one thing I've thought about which could be holding back contracts and more guardrails with NIL for stuff like this is say Program A says hey we will give you NIL but you have to pay it back if something happens or you portal etc but then Program B just comes in and says we won't do any of that, essentially forcing Program A to cave.
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Depends on the contract.
If the NIL contract was simply money at the time, then probably not. If the contract contained requirements that required him to be playing football, then yes, they could take the money back.
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All depends on contract, but even if the contract was perfectly written for the collective to get money back, Tybo still has no legal obligation to pay anything back until he is sued and a court tells him he has an obligation. Can't imagine it's a good look for the collective to be suing former players.
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Your last point is the key to all of this. Collectives are going to get reputations over time.
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Yeah and it's why actual rules and enforcement need to be put in place for all parties but I don't have high hopes. Even if rules are put in (they might actually be just not enforced), there's nothing to stop programs from just doing things illegally. It's actually why I don't have much hope for a salary cap type situation, which should be installed. I would think even the powers that be for the most part in cfb want something like that so they aren't forced to give out massive bags to not elite players just because certain programs offer unreasonable amounts of money.
Would love a system where players are getting compensated but still mostly going to the program they actually like and some kind of personality and regionalism can stay in the sport. Otherwise I'm probably out .
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The rules and enforcement are really only viable with collective bargaining in place. If all the schools, collectives got together and agreed to contract structure, terms, etc. without bargaining in place that would be collusion. There is no other path besides a revenue sharing agreement.
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How does that apply if the schools are public institutions and the players aren't "employees"? I mean, if they did it without the collectives present.
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I'm saying that if say all the Big Ten schools all got together and agreed that they wouldn't have their collectives or coaches offer guaranteed NIL contracts to non employee players, no upfront payments, dollar limits to players, etc, that would be collusion. It's no different than if the big tech firms getting together and deciding that they aren't going to pay contract engineers more than $100/hour or something.
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Kid has legal bills
Players won't become employees. Cook it
Independent subs at best
