The NCAA’s Division I Committee on Infractions announced its first decision, regarding Miami’s women’s basketball program, in the wake of the new NIL rules established July, 2021. The gist ($$):
- The decision, a negotiated resolution between the school, the coach and the NCAA enforcement staff, included one year of probation and recruiting sanctions.
- It did not require Miami booster John Ruiz to disassociate from the school nor did it punish the two athletes at the center of the case.
- The school self-imposed a three-game suspension on the coach.
- There’s a one-year probationary period, a fine and some recruiting restrictions.
That’s it. Now maybe you’re not seeing a discouraging message being sent to schools about reining in their boosters, but, brother, the NCAA wants you to know you’re all wet about that. No, really ($$).
The panel was troubled by the limited nature and severity of institutional penalties agreed-upon by Miami and the enforcement staff namely, the absence of a disassociation of the involved booster. Further, this case was processed prior to the adoption of NCAA Bylaw 19.7.3, which went into effect on January 1, 2023, and presumes that a violation occurred in cases involving name, image and likeness offers, agreements and/or activities. Based on legislation in effect at the time of submission, the panel cannot presume that activities around name, image and likeness resulted in NCAA violations.
Although the parties asserted that a disassociation penalty would be inappropriate based on an impermissible meal and an impermissible contact, today’s new NIL-related environment represents a new day. Boosters are involved with prospects and student-athletes in ways the NCAA membership has never seen or encountered. In that way, addressing impermissible booster conduct is critical, and the disassociation penalty presents an effective penalty available to the COI.
I’m sure that’s got schools quaking in their boots.
“We didn’t want to put a green light on (that behavior),” COI chair Dave Roberts, USC’s special assistant to the athletic director, told The Athletic.
You didn’t exactly put a red light on it, either.
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UPDATE: Yeah, this didn’t take long at all.
He seems to have gotten the message, alright.
Get The Picture 
what i love about the U is they hate the turds on a similar level as the Dawgs
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As others have written, the U is the Northern Alliance of universities.
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The NCAA is now a toothless, clawless tiger. Ever since ALSTON.
It’s what we all wanted, right?
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“Ever since”? LOL.
Auburn would beg to differ.
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Or North Carolina. Really, the NCAA can try to do anything, and some schools will reach ‘negotiated settlements’ like Miami just did because it’s cheaper than contesting, but the NCAA can’t seriously think they can actually win in the courts again.
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Are they ever going to do something about Tenn?.
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Other than slap a show cause order on Pruitt and other coaches involved in McDGate, I doubt it.
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I’m confused. They’re saying they feel like they should ban the booster and yet they didn’t even try to? The panel on infractions being trouble by something isn’t the same as me being troubled by it, they can actually do something about it if they think that it needs to be done.
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As long as the world knows they’re concerned, they’re doing their job.
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Is it just me or is John Ruiz bad at his role of paying players?
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Hey, we’re talking the U here, cash, show offs and wannabes are always welcome there…
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I think it’s that he doesn’t give a shit.
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The NCAA is repping their own NIL via a newly released can of “Copout”- a lawsuit repellant, for just $3.99 per unit.
Sold at participating schools near you.
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Ain’t but one way out baby
Lord I just can’t go out that door
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NCAA, bent over and holding their ankles, “Thank you sir, may I have another?” McGarity missed his calling by not working with this bunch of toothless, clawless housecats.
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Didn’t mean to take your adjectives chopdawg, posted before reading. Great minds and all that.
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Good to see the NCAA going after the sports with all the big cheatin’ money, like women’s basketball. I’m sure that’s where 90% of the pay-for-pay deals are going these days. ##
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Shorter Ruiz to NCAA: “What cha gonna do…sue me? Hahahahaha!”
I still don’t understand why the NCAA continues to attack the source of the money instead of simply defending their definition of amateurism and rules of eligibility. Go make money anyway you can kids, but if you want to play, you must be enrolled, make passing grades, and can accept no more than $xxx in scholarship, stipends and endorsements. The USGA does it, so how is that an anti-trust violation?
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The NCAA can punish Miami for its role in facilitating payments to players as it always has. Sure, Ruiz can file a lawsuit for any reason, but the questions are,
1. can he win, and,
2. can he avoid sanctions for filing a frivolous suit.
The NCAA would not be taking away any recognized rights he has. He can still hand out money to athletes on the court, field or pitch during games. Miami and the players are the ones facing consequences for their actions in allowing it or accepting the money.
He does not have a constitutional right to assist his alma mater in violating NCAA rules.
My response to him is the same as it is to other blowhards who threatened silly suits: “Go ahead, the clerk’s office is open Monday through Friday from 8:30 to 5:00.”
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Did you see the latest Texas A & M NIL roll out and Downs & Haynes in the Bama NIL deal.
The NCAA has no chance and shouldn’t. It is long past time fir tge athletes to get a share of the pie
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That Ruiz quote is excellent. I’m glad he called the cartel’s bluff. F*ck the NCAA.
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What is the basis for his lawsuit.
To put it in language a judge would use,
1. What duty did the NCAA owe to Ruiz?
2. What damages recognizable by the law did he suffer?
Bluffs are worthless when the bluffing person can’t answer those questions.
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Miami broke the rules so mcgarity will suspend Kendall Milton for first 4 games for punishment
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Miami women’s basketball? Wow, the NCAA is really getting serious about this!
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Read the update and thought, the last thing the NCAA wants to do is get sued by a multi-millionaire booster. The courts are not exactly bending over backwards to help the NCAA after the Supremes tongue lashing. Seems that if a guy with a lot of money wants to give it to a student and the NCAA interferes with that and in fact tries to prevent said booster from associating with the school the courts would call BS on it in a heart beat. I’m waiting on the first school, beside UNC, to basically tell the NCAA to go to hell and sue them. I have a feeling the National Labor Relation Board will take care of this shortly anyway.
My company got audited by the DOL Wage and Hour guys, and even though our contractors had cleared the IRS hurdle, W&H said they were employees as far as the DOL was concerned. We had a lot less control over our contractors than a school has over it’s athletes so the government can screw them anytime they want.
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69, the courts below the US Supreme Court are bending over backwards to understand the existing controlling law and to apply it.
The NCAA is like everyone else; it doesn’t want to have to defend a frivolous lawsuit. Like everyone else it shouldn’t be deterred from its mission by the risk of having to defend a frivolous lawsuit.
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If you lose a frivolous lawsuit, it’s not frivolous. Right now the NLRB is on the mother and like I said the right to “control” the person is paramount in deciding if that person is an employee.
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I apologize, 69, for the poor wording of my post so that it implied my reference to “frivolous suits” was a commentary on your company’s situation. I was referring to the hypothetical “he should sue!!!!” kneejerk comments that get posted.
The successful suits against the NCAA have been Anti-Trust suits. The courts in O’Bannon have held that among the consuming public there is z market for college sports distinct from the market for pro sports, and as a result NCAA rules that facilitate that market distinction that do not significantly impact on players and colleges ability to negotiate do not violate the Sherman Act. In other words, the NCAA can maintain rules regarding eligibility.
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So Miami absorbs the penalties. Players and Ruiz are off limits.
You would almost think the school did this intentionally to show prospective players not to worry about the ncaa messing with whatever deal the boosters make with the kids.
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Didn’t the players serve a suspension, just as AJ Green and Todd Gurley did? I would not call that “off limits.”
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“…nor did it punish the two athletes at the center of the case.”
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“It’s just a flesh wound…”
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The 2023 NCAA regulation essentially changing the presumptive value of evidence can enable the NCAA to actually have teeth.
Example. Cam Newton’s statement to Mississippi State coaches that he switched his commitment from MSU to Auburn because “the money was better at Auburn ” had no evidentiary value against Auburn and Cam because that admission had no value without corroboration. In a civil trial the trier of fact that admission is evidence.
Now the NCAA could say. “Cam, you admitted talking money. What is your evidence you didn’t?” The NCAA can now based finding against Cam from his admission and lack of contrary evidence.
The question is will the NCAA want to?
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But the entire NCAA rule that would restrict payment has been rendered illegal. How can they go after somebody for violating an illegal rule?
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I don’t think Alston goes that far. I thought Kavanaugh wrote in his opinion that he would willing to go farther farther, but that’s not what the plaintiffs were asking for. The NCAA still has the power to punish the schools for violating the by-laws they agree to as a condition of membership.
All of this is why the collectives are fully separate entities from the schools.
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No, the federal courts have never held that the NCAA rules prohibiting colleges from paying recruits to sign with a school and colleges from paying players violate the Sherman Antitrust Act.
O’Bannon dealt with colleges paying athletes tje amounts the player’s actual costs of attendance exceeds what scholarships cover. Alston dealt with colleges giving players money for meeting academic benchmarks. The federal courts have never considered and ruled on a case involving a college being a party to a player selling her or his NIL rights.
Read the O’Bannon and Alston cases. Those cases male it clear that eligibility rules creating a distinction in the sports consumer community between college athletes and pro athletes can be legal under the Sherman Act if the rules meet the Rule of Reason.
The NCAA rule on NIL is that the athlete can sell his NIL rights to third party buyers but the college cannot pay for players’ rights directly or through an agent for the college.
My guess is that a court would rule that the NCAA cannot punish Brock Bowers if you paid him to do commercials for your company. However, if Sam Pittman got Cgle chicken to pay a QB recruit $10 million to “live in Fayetteville Arkansas ” appear at 2 corporate events a year my guess is that the NCAA may conclude Cagle was not making a bona fide business deal nut was instead a strawman for Pittman doing what Pittman himself could not do.
I cannot predict whether the courts would conclude that the NCAA may or may not prohibit that last example. My guess, based upon O’Bannon and Alston, is that the NCAA could prohibit the second example but not the first example.
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Barring a law that exempts student athletes from being the employees of the school, the schools are at the mercy of the Department of Labor National’s Labor Relations Board. Real Estate Brokers don’t have to treat their agents as employees because there is a law saying the agents are deemed to be independent contractors.
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Senator, this is asking a lot, but if it interests you too, sometime during the summer news doldrums, providing a summary of where NIL stands, issues being challenged, and what the NCAA is trying to accomplish would be a terrific reader service.
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