Sep. 25—College sports had a new crisis to get hysterical about Wednesday.
Gone for just a moment was that old, tired conference realignment topic — you know, where university presidents and athletic directors are deciding to ditch longstanding league affiliations to pursue offers of more money elsewhere and geographic common sense without regard for what it would mean for student-athletes.
Insert a more familiar trope: kids these days.
The distraction began late Tuesday night when Matt Sluka, the starting senior quarterback of the 3-0 UNLV Rebels football team, ranked in the AFCA Coaches Top 25 Poll for the first time in program history this week, dropped somewhat of a bombshell on his X and Instagram accounts.
The fifth-year quarterback who played four seasons at FCS Holy Cross before transferring to UNLV over the summer, says UNLV verbally promised $100,000 in NIL (name, image, likeness) compensation to play for the Rebels. Since arriving in Las Vegas, however, he’s been paid only $3,000.
Nothing, both school and player agree, was ever in writing.
So, he’s done. Sluka, like a contractor not being paid, is leaving with the job unfinished, deciding to transfer to another school for next season by taking advantage of new NCAA rules that allow for a football player to retain a season of eligibility if he plays four or fewer games.
UNLV issued a statement Wednesday saying Sluka and his agent approached head coach Barry Odom and “made financial demands … in order to continue playing. UNLV Athletics interpreted these demands as a violation of the NCAA pay-for-play rules, as well as Nevada state law.”
The cries of NIL money killing college athletics were many on social media, as were the not entirely accurate complaints about there being no “guardrails” or ability to enforce anything in this new era of player compensation.
I mean, where on earth would a college player get the idea that it’s OK to just up and leave teammates so he can go get more money somewhere else?
Side note: As of this column’s publication on Wednesday, UNLV administrators were still deciding whether to follow five other schools in bolting from the Mountain West for the promise of more money from the Pac-12 through a media rights deal that isn’t yet in writing because it doesn’t exist yet.
Back to those damned kids ruining college athletics.
One thing almost everyone could agree on Wednesday was it sure would have been nice if Sluka’s deal had at least been in writing.
After all, a proper contract stipulating he was supposed to get paid $100,000 would be enforceable in court and would have protected both parties from the he said/he said PR nightmare that has played out instead (yes, Sluka is taking a beating, but so, too, is future UNLV recruiting).
So, let’s localize this a bit.
Kurt Roth is the semi-retired Brooklyn real estate lawyer-turned-founder and director of the 505 Sports Venture Foundation, the local NIL collective paying Lobo athletes.
“Every single (Lobo) player we pay has a contract in writing,” Roth said of the 57 Lobo athletes with a 505SVF deal — a number he says will likely grow to about 80 athletes this school year — getting paid between a few hundred dollars to deals well into the six-figure range.
“That’s the way all of these should be. It’s ridiculous for any collective or agent or school, quite frankly, to be OK with these deals getting done without contracts,” Roth told the Journal.
Roth and UNM continue implement best practices as the NIL world settles.
For instance, last spring the Lobos’ freshman superstar basketball player JT Toppin announced he was transferring to Texas Tech on the eve of the transfer portal closing. UNM lost out on a month of recruiting for his position with several potential transfer targets having already been scooped up.
Now, 505 SVF contracts are “transfer portal date sensitive,” Roth said, meaning some payments throughout the year are contingent on a player being on the roster at certain dates. (This also could address hypothetical concerns about football players refusing to play in bowl games without getting paid more NIL money).
Yes, Sluka and his agent should have had their deal in writing before playing for the Rebels. But make no mistake, in this current reality, it was probably also at least a little irresponsible of Odom and UNLV to allow their multi-million dollar football business have its starting quarterback play a month into the season with no deal in writing, too.
A lesson for all.
OK, enough about these kids ruining the game. Let’s turn our attention back to conference realignment, where such greed and shady backroom deals that hurt student athletes all in the name of money would never happen.
