Man, it was all the way back to *** checks notes *** yesterday when I posted this observation:
If there’s one thing that really surprises me about the new landscape, it’s how passive head coaches, surely among the world’s greatest control freaks, have been about letting boosters run rampant.
Well, lookee here.
College leaders are gearing up to issue a warning to hundreds of wealthy boosters who are using name, image and likeness (NIL) ventures to involve themselves in recruiting.
University administrators, part of a task force to review NIL, are finalizing additional guidelines that are expected to clarify that boosters and booster-led collectives are prohibited from involvement in recruiting, multiple sources tell Sports Illustrated. The guidelines will provide more guidance to member schools on what many administrators say are NIL-disguised “pay for play” deals orchestrated by donors to induce prospects, recruit players off other college teams and retain their own athletes.
The new directives will highlight existing NCAA bylaws that outlaw boosters from participating in recruiting, reminding member schools of guardrails that, while in place for years, have been bent and broken during the first 10 months of the NIL era, officials say. Under a long-held NCAA rule, boosters are a representative arm of an athletic department and are not supposed to associate with or persuade prospects.
The guidelines, still in draft form, outline that booster-backed collectives should be prohibited from associating with high school prospects and college transfers, potentially opening the door for contentious legal challenges between the association and booster groups.
My first thought upon hearing about that was to laugh. The NCAA wants to wade back into treacherous legal waters over player compensation? Talk about your definition of insanity.
Then I started thinking about it a little more. Maybe there’s a way to come up with an approach that has some enforceable teeth to it. The trick would be to focus on punishing boosters, not players. And that kind of sounds like this:
The new directives will highlight existing NCAA bylaws that outlaw boosters from participating in recruiting, reminding member schools of guardrails that, while in place for years, have been bent and broken during the first 10 months of the NIL era, officials say. Under a long-held NCAA rule, boosters are a representative arm of an athletic department and are not supposed to associate with or persuade prospects.
The guidelines, still in draft form, outline that booster-backed collectives should be prohibited from associating with high school prospects and college transfers, potentially opening the door for contentious legal challenges between the association and booster groups.
Schools that do not control their donors’ spending could be found to have violated NCAA rules and will be sanctioned, according to the document.
Spending eight million dollars on a recruit who will never throw a pass in anger in a playoff game because his team is banned from it seems like a major waste of money, even for a booster who sincerely believes his shit doesn’t stink. But, even if the NCAA doesn’t punish the recruit, do boosters have enough legal juice to thwart enforcement?
Any NCAA enforcement will challenge state NIL laws and risk a bevy of lawsuits from the wealthy collectives and individual donors, experts say.
“Either you let everyone do it or you enforce the rule,” Florida-based sports attorney Darren Heitner says. “In essence, what’s happening or will happen is those who are willing to violate the rule will be rewarded if nothing is done about it. Don’t have a rule if you’re not willing to enforce it. This isn’t a matter of them not being able to do something. But will it further open itself up to more litigation, litigation it will probably lose?”
Sounds like we’re going to find out. Boosters suing their schools certainly has a weird vibe to it, but so does this:
“I have some coaches call me and say, ‘I don’t know what to do about this booster because he’s offering all these kids NIL money and I don’t even want the kid’,'” shared Todd Berry, executive director of the American Football Coaches Association.
The NCAA had best find better lawyers than they had the last time they were in court.
Get The Picture 