He's very knowledgeable about all things sports but, specifically, NIL information... Here's a snippet from his latest email...


"The first big NIL lawsuit is finally here

A few months after the NIL era really started in 2021, I wrote about the conditions were already ripe for a major lawsuit. Brands, schools and athletes were largely flying blind into deals, often operating without anything resembling a formalized contract. Later, NIL collectives grew in budget, power and influence, and a new cadre of athlete agents, often without law degrees, formal credentials or certifications, flooded the market.

I figured it was only a matter of time before somebody didn’t get what they thought they deserved, and decided to sue over it.

Well, it took a little longer than I expected, but that big ol’ lawsuit is finally here. Former Miami Commit-Turned Florida Commit-Turned Arizona State QB-turned Georgia QB Jaden Rashada is suing the University of Florida and Billy Napier over NIL fraud.

If you aren’t familiar with the story, a TL;DR summary is that Rashada was allegedly promised an enormous NIL package, north of $10 million, if he committed to Florida instead of Miami. Allegedly, after Rashada signed his National Letter of Intent, Florida’s NIL collectives failed to honor their financial commitments, and then sought to renegotiate at a dramatically lower rate. Rasahda then left for Arizona State, and after one season, transferred again to Georgia.

I think it’s pretty unlikely that Florida or Napier face significant NCAA punishment, even though you don’t exactly need to be Encyclopedia Brown to read coverage of this story and suspect that either Napier, or third parties acting on the explicit behalf of Florida football, violated the spirit of NCAA NIL guidelines. As a result of yet another completely different lawsuit, the NCAA suspended active investigations into NIL rule violations. With so much up in the air from House and governance reform tied to those settlements, it could be a long time before anybody from Indianapolis issues any sanctions.

But there are other forces that can punish either party here beyond the NCAA.

For one, there’s the court of public opinion / the marketplace. Florida, a school that is not supposed to ever go 5-7, went 5-7 last season…and just so happens to have one of the hardest schedules in the entire country this season. Look at this!

One way to make sure that you don’t have the political and culture capital to survive back to back 5–7 seasons at Florida is to also get yourself roped into an embarrassing lawsuit that insinuates that your program is both sloppy AND poor. Florida’s 2025 recruiting class currently sits at 44, below schools like Iowa, Rutgers, Minnesota and Cal.

There’s also the potential cost of either settling this case, or going to trial. I’m going to make a wild guess here that Florida and any entities associated with Florida Gators recruiting would prefer to not go to the discovery phase of any recruiting related litigation. But if Rashada was really offered $13 million and change to come to Florida, with an NFL career somewhat in doubt now, he’d have every incentive to push hard to maximize what he can get from a lawsuit.

The fact that all of this is happening while Rashada is currently on the roster of one of Florida’s biggest rivals is just…*chef’s kiss*. College football perfection.

The idea of collectives (with the explicit blessing of a school or not) failing to keep their financial promises is not a new story, even if it’s becoming a less common one, now that collectives are more professionalized and standardized than they were two years ago. The idea of potential fraud at this scale, at this amount of money, at these programs, with these uh, college sports industry side characters involved…is new.

I don’t know how the story will end. But I feel pretty confident it’s going to get loud, and probably very stupid, before it concludes."