Ken Kush: NIL deal gone bad? Or just an unkept promise
It was bound to happen. A disgruntled athlete who decides to walk away from his team because the money he was promised has not been paid out.
UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka has decided he is taking his ball and going to redshirt the remainder of the 2024 football season. He has left the team and from all indications the Rebels have already moved on.
The UNLV Rebels are 3-0 on the season and just upset the Kansas Jayhawks in Lawrence a few weeks ago.
Sluka is saying that he has not received the money he was promised when he transferred from Holy Cross, an FCS school to UNLV for this season.
By redshirting, Sluka can keep his year of eligibility and more than likely transfer to another program and work out a deal somewhere else.
In this case there does not appear to be a contract anywhere and in the case of NIL regulations those are left up to the state laws.
If Sluka did not sign a contract and it was all a verbal agreement with what now seems to be one of the UNLV coaches, does Sluka have any leg to stand on?
As of right now (August 1, 2024) the rules allow a player to pursue NIL opportunities without limitations from the NCAA, conferences or universities. These deals can be endorsements, sponsorships and commercial activities.
Is this going to be the first of many situations where athletes are going to just stop playing because they are not getting what they were promised? And who knows what they were promised if the deal was never written down and details documented.
The rules, (if there are any) on the NIL are very vague and unwritten which down the road could cause some major issues among athletes who do not get what they are told they would get.
There are no rules when it comes to how much money a player can get from an NIL deal. Universities cannot make NIL deals with their own athletes.
The highest paid NIL deals belong to Bronny James (LeBron's son). Shedeur Sanders and LSU gymnast Livvy Dunn. There are no federal laws when it comes to NIL.
It would seem at some point and time something needs to be written down and rules need to be established when it comes to NIL deals that may have been made and may have not been made.
I hope this is not the start of something bigger down the road and we see more and more athletes walk away from their teammates and the school they represent because an agent did not come through with a deal they were promised. Remember the schools are not the one responsible for paying on an NIL deals.
Since my dad has dementia I have been doing some reading on the disease trying to get a better understanding of how this affects the person and how it may affect me down the road.
There is a test you can take to see if you are in the early stages and this test indicates if you are showing signs.
If you forget things, if you lose track of why you enter a room, if you lose track of time, if you forget people names that you have known forever and so on. I can say there have been times I have experienced all of those, but who hasn't?
The more I read the more I realize there is no playbook so-to-speak with the disease. Each person will be affected in a different way.
My dad does a lot of undercover work for different individuals and every time I go to see him he is involved in some type of espionage case and is working with authorities.
Of course this is just his imagination and none of this is happening, but he is convinced it is and we just go along with him. It is always interesting to see what he is working on each time we go there.
Sounds like a great weekend ahead and I hope that every one has a great two days off. If you are traveling, just be careful and be safe.
I will not have a column next week as I will be in the mountains of Colorado vacationing a few days from Wednesday to Sunday to refresh the mind and get ready for the stretch run of the fall sports season.
Assistant Sports Editor
