Era of Paying College Athletes Takes an Unexpected Twist

Star quarterback quits his team over pay dispute, and trend is expected to increase
By John Johnson,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 7, 2024 9:55 AM CDT
A College Football First: QB Quits in Pay Dispute
UNLV quarterback Matthew Sluka runs with the ball against Kansas during a game Friday, Sept. 13, 2024, at Children's Mercy Park in Kansas City, Kansas.   (AP Photo/Ed Zurga)

College football continues to wrestle with the logistics of a new era in which players can cash in on their name, image, and likeness. Some experiments are weirder than others—such as QR codes on helmets. But now comes yet another new wrinkle that has the potential to mess with a team's success: The Athletic dubs it "Opt-Out Week," and it was illustrated this season with an unprecedented controversy at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas:

  • Quarterback Matthew Sluka quit the team after leading it to a 3-0 start in a dispute over his NIL (name, image, likeness) compensation, reports On3. The timing is important: Sluka intends to transfer to a new school and play next season, and this year won't count against his NCAA eligibility because he appeared in four or fewer games.

  • Going forward, the Athletic predicts this might be the start of a trend around the four-week mark of every season as big-name players use their leverage and threaten to opt out if they feel their NIL compensation isn't good enough: "Imagine a college player holding out over missed payments, or even for some newfound value through four games, dangling the transfer portal over a program's head."
  • In Sluka's case, his agent says an assistant coach promised him at least $100,000 from the team's NIL "collective," which never materialized. These collectives are "organized groups of donors who raise cash to fund endorsement deals," the Wall Street Journal explains. The money doesn't come directly from the team.
  • Just how murky is all this? "Schools are officially prohibited from using endorsement deals as recruiting inducements," and the "rules also ban teams from striking verbal or written deals with athletes before they enroll," per the Journal. "In practice, however, most players being recruited are presented with a dollar amount they can reasonably expect to earn."
  • The NCAA may have to put new rules into place to get some of this in check. But in the meantime, the NIL situation is "utter chaos," writes Jason Page in an MSNBC analysis of all this.
(More college football stories.)

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