Grammer: Sluka saga highlights how much players AND schools still have to learn in NIL world

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…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/grammer-sluka-saga-highlights-much-030200594.html

Author : Albuquerque Journal, N.M.

Publish date : 2024-09-26 03:02:00

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