Matthew Sluka leaves UNLV over $100K NIL dispute amid growing tensions in college football’s pay-for-play era

ROSEMONT, Ill. — During a phone conversation in December, an assistant coach at UNLV made a pitch to quarterback Matthew Sluka: Come play here and we’ll pay you $100,000.

That is at least according to Sluka’s agent Marcus Cromartie.

Nine months later, with the Rebels undefeated, ranked in the top 25 and, for now, the Group of 5’s favorite to claim a College Football Playoff spot, Sluka is no longer part of the team after he was not paid the promised amount.

The decision sent shockwaves through college athletics at a sensitive time in the industry and on a timely week: The sport’s leaders, the Division I conference commissioners and NCAA president Charlie Baker, are gathering Wednesday and Thursday for their annual meeting at Big Ten headquarters in the suburbs of Chicago.

The gathering unfolds on the eve of an important deadline: On Thursday, the NCAA, power conferences and attorneys must file a brief in the House antitrust settlement, a multi-billion dollar agreement that would usher into the sport direct revenue sharing with athletes and, perhaps more notably given this situation, provide transparency and more binding agreements directly with schools.

Both sides involved in the UNLV situation — Sluka’s agent and UNLV — have spoken. Emerging is a truth not uncommon in this unwieldy and complicated world of college sports where schools are relying on third-parties and boosters to fund football rosters: Not everyone is on the same proverbial page.

“It starts off with full transparency,” said Cromartie, an agent for Equity Sports representing Sluka. “We must allow these negotiations and these written agreements to happen and not put so many regulations on them. The school and coaches are negotiating but you are allowing someone else (collectives) to pay for it, hoping they get the money from boosters….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/matthew-sluka-leaves-unlv-over-100k-nil-dispute-amid-growing-tensions-in-college-footballs-pay-for-play-era-195921691.html

Author : Yahoo Sports

Publish date : 2024-09-25 19:59:21

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