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Reports that Tennessee football quarterback Nico Iamaleava is renegotiating his name, image and likeness deal should surprise no one.
Why wouldn’t he? He has all the leverage.
Imagine how much money Peyton Manning could have commanded if NIL deals and the transfer portal had been in place after the 1996 season. The Vols were positioned to make a run at the national championship if he returned for his senior season.
They breathed a huge sigh of relief when Manning announced he would wait another year to enter the NFL draft.
The NFL is the least of Tennessee’s concerns with Iamaleava, who supposedly signed an NIL deal for $2.2 million in 2022. What if he entered the transfer portal next week, signed elsewhere and left the Vols scrambling to prepare a new quarterback for the 2025 season?
What choice does UT have except to pay up?
Never mind that Iamaleava hasn’t achieved anything close to what Manning did. Last year − in his first season as a sophomore − he didn’t live up to the enormous hype surrounding his signing but led the Vols to the College Football Playoff and a 10-3 record.
However, NIL negotiations are as much about leverage as talent. Iamaleava has both.
In fact, he has more leverage than NFL players. They’re employees working under contract. An NIL deal isn’t a contract, and the deal can be broken without the player being penalized.
How good is that?
Very good for Iamaleava. Not so good for Tennessee.
The Vols have only two other scholarship quarterbacks: Jake Merklinger, a four-star recruit who played in two games last season, and George MacIntyre, another four-star signee, who arrived on campus in January.
Something else in Iamaleava’s favor: His hometown of Long Beach, California, where he played at Warren High School and which is only about 25 miles from the Southern Cal campus.
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Source link : https://www.knoxnews.com/story/sports/columnists/university-of-tennessee/john-adams/2025/04/10/nico-iamaleava-tennessee-football-nil-southern-cal-transfer-portal/83032504007/
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Publish date : 2025-04-10 22:28:00
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