Why is the NCAA fighting this, when it’s happening everywhere?

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Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Grainger. For the ones who get it done. Alright, let's get to some other things. We have talked about this before. For people who have listened to this program, you know that I have been very loud in my support for college athletes and their right to earn money based on, we'll just use name, image, likeness.

But frankly, who they are. There is value in being the college athlete. And I've been talking about this not just for the last six months, 12 months, 18 months.

I've been talking about it for like five years or longer. Because if you go back to Marcus Page, when he was at North Carolina, who didn't really have a pro future or use RJ Davis or Jeremy Roach, the time to realize your value in the marketplace is while you're in school and you have actual value. Well, that's an NIL deal.

There's another part of this. And now that it is flat out pay for play in college and the courts can't do anything about it. Why couldn't a player, an athlete like Nick Dunlap, the golfer at Alabama, who won a PGA Tour event and then turned pro. Why couldn't he stay at Alabama and just make money?

Well, Reese Brant Myers, a tennis player at the University of North Carolina, felt the same way. But it's not allowed. Jason Miller is an attorney with Miller Monroe and pilar pilar pilar pilar. Sorry. Can't read here in town. And he joins us on the Adam Gold show.

He's Reese Brant Myers, attorney. This seems like the living, breathing definition of NIL or pay for play. Why is the NCAA against this? Why are they fighting it?

And why are they inviting another loss in court? Adam, good afternoon. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about what I think is very noble cause and one that I think most people will agree with.

And I hope at some point the NCAA will agree with it. You got the firm name, correct? I appreciate that. It was not easy for me. It's the end of a long day. No, I appreciate it.

I appreciate it. We're a commercial litigation sports law firm in town, and we've partnered with our friends at Millburg, Dan Bryce and his team to bring this action. It's a antitrust class action suit against the NCAA. And the case, as you said, deals with a pretty narrow issue. It is whether an individual athlete, college athlete and individual sport can retain earnings that they have when they compete in on non NCAA events. So, for example, the U.S. Open.

Right. And, you know, some of these athletes, Reese, for example, we're talking 40 or $50,000 in her case. Some of these athletes, it is, you know, two and $300,000 for athletes where there's no guaranteed future in a professional tennis or professional golf, swimming, track and field, those sorts of sports. And so what we're saying is, you know, the NCAA is allowing folks to earn a whole lot of income based on their NIL, as you mentioned. They're allowing the Olympians to be paid for medals. They allow, if certain organizations call it a grant, they allow athletes to keep a grant. What's the difference between a grant and prize money? I don't exactly fully understand. Right.

But this is the narrow case where, you know, there's still archaic rules in place that say, look, we're going to allow you to play in the U.S. Open. Adam Golan studio with my man coach Pete through to Capital Financial Advisory Group on your website. And I love the term financial termites because there are always things eating at your money that you can't see. So you don't want financial termites. Termites in the financial world are risk, fees, unnecessary commissions. All the bad things that we see and we hear about on TV are happening many times inside your portfolio you don't see. So you need a financial exterminator. Well, for the next 10 of you call, we'll put together for you your very own total retirement plan at no cost. Call 888-843-0013 or text Adam to 600-700. Adam Golan is a paid spokesman.

Investment advisory services offered by Capital Financial Advisory Group, a North Carolina registered investment advisor. But if you win money, you can't keep it because that would destroy the concept of amateurism, which we all know is long gone. Right.

I mean, Jason Miller is joining us here. Reese Brant Myers, attorney, the UNC tennis player who wants to play an outside NCAA events and earn money doing so, which again, makes perfect sense to those of us who have looked at this. What I'm what I'm curious about is how the NCAA has argued back with you, how they square the recent lawsuit where the attorneys general in Virginia and Tennessee, I believe, sued the NCAA and won in court that they're not even allowed to enforce their own rule about pay for play. So they it's it's actually against the rules, but now they can't even am I missing that there is a difference here? It seems like they're just not allowed to enforce it anyway. How are they still holding the line on this?

The walls are shaking, the ceiling falling in the chandeliers hanging down. They're trying to keep the thing up. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

And I can't explain it. How do you allow and we're not we're not against NIL payments. We think it's it's a good development law. Yeah, we're not against the other compensation folks receive. This is not asking pay for play. We're not saying, hey, you the school need to pay these athletes. That's not what this case about.

This is they've gone elsewhere and they've earned the money and you're making them give it back. And in Reese's case, I mean, it's particularly egregious. I mean, she she was allowed to keep her actual expenses. She was a high school junior. Right. Sixteen years old. And the NCA before she she gets to Carolina, they do an audit of her expenses and they say, hey, we can't guarantee you're going to be eligible until we complete this audit. Of course.

UNC fits her rather than face the wrath of the NCA. And, you know, they go back and look and say, hey, you're 16 years old. But, you know, he said in the hotel room, your mother was there with you. You really should have deducted 50 percent of her cost. You took an Uber with your mother.

You really should have deducted 50 percent of that Uber ride. I mean, it's the kind of things we're talking about in today's day and age. The the incident is just the IRS and the NCAA doing it.

That's a good question. I mean, there is somebody in a high school, a 16 year old coming in, a freshman in college by the time this actually gets decided in a non revenue sport. Somebody that doesn't have a guaranteed future. And frankly, how long is a tennis career?

Even if you do have a guaranteed future, she's got an opportunity to make real money. It doesn't cost the school anything. Right. It doesn't cost the NCA anything. And by the way, it benefits them tremendously. Is it not better for the NCA to have their athletes knowing that they can stay in school, get an education, participate in the NCA system, but earn enough money to be able to fund additional participation in tennis tournaments or practice or a coach? I mean, what how does that hurt the NCA?

I have been arguing for a long time that. Could you imagine if they allowed Michelle Wee to play professional golf events while she was like an enrolled student living in the dorms at Stanford? If they had allowed that Katie Ledecky, maybe the greatest female swimmer of all time. I don't even know if I should use the word maybe has not been able to compete for Stanford or would not be able been been able to compete for Stanford if she earned money outside of that.

Like, why can't we have both? It would raise the level of awareness for college sports, which I believe is probably a good thing and benefits all parties. Do you see this ever getting to court? And because it's an antitrust suit, whatever monetary damages would be trebled. What is what is the NCAAs exposure here or are you just suing for access? Well, you know, the key to our case, this is not a case that we're out there pursuing money. We're not even seeking damages in this case, which is quite a differentiator.

Yeah, it was something that for our firm, Miller, Monroe and Plyler, it was important to take on a noble case and one that we can believe in. Reese is pursuing a change in the rules. She's not she doesn't have her hand out. She's not saying, hey, I want what you all owe me or what you took away from me. Right.

Going back in time. She's simply coming forward to try to stop this for, you know, for herself and what eligibility she has left and for future student athletes. But the definition of a student athlete shouldn't be whether you earn money on a side hustle, because the definition ought to be whether you are an active student, whether you do the work, whether you take the test, whether you maintain your eligibility. Why are we worried about whether she earned some money at the U.S. Open? Do we worry about our students that sell their art, not being students or music students that play in a band and get paid one hundred and fifty bucks?

One hundred and fifty bucks for a Friday night at a you know, at a bar. Yeah. No, we don't agree. And you're right. You know, I think that this is all going to come down. You know, again, we're the NTA's answers do coming up here in about 30 days. We'll see what they do with it. Maybe they'll fight us to the to the health on it. We're sort of expecting they will. But we hope since we are not seeking a big pile of money, since we're seeking to have a rule change that everyone agrees is is sort of absurd in today's world, we're trying to have a change so that these these student athletes don't have to face the same trials that Reese had to face.

And you mentioned a minute ago, you know, that this is the time for these athletes to make money. Reese blew her knee out, you know, about months ago. She had surgery and she's she's fighting hard.

She's coming back. But there's no guarantees here. That's right.

There is no guarantee in a pro career. Yeah. So, yeah, you should maybe you should amend the lawsuit to get some cash from the NCAA. Jason Miller from Miller Monroe and Plyler. All right.

While I have you, since you you this is also your area of expertise. I read I guess it was late last week that there is some rumor of a brokered arrangement between ESPN, the ACC and Florida State and Clemson who are seeking legal remedies for what they believe to be a bad deal, bad television deal, which limits their media revenue to about half of what they're going to get, what they could get in the SEC of the Big Ten. The way I look at the story, it's that ESPN is essentially forcing the ACC to agree to this. If the ACC says no, do they have legal remedy against ESPN? You know, the irony here is this is all based in contract, right?

You enter a contract. Of course, you're going to assume sophisticated parties like the ACC and Florida State and Clemson, ESPN. They all have teams of lawyers. They all know what they're doing. Right. They go into these deals wide open and they've got to sort of honor those obligations.

I mean, the irony of this thing is Florida State and Clemson. I mean, the idea that they were somehow taken advantage of if they didn't see this coming or that they shouldn't be held to their contracts is so strange, a little absurd. Right. The teams lawyers put these things together. They the NTA has allowed these conferences to go out and form up contracts in whatever way they see fit with their member institutions. They form the contract. Everybody sings the praises of how much money they're going to make and ensures the long term stability of the conference. And then, you know, a few years later, they sort of change their minds.

They shoot. The wind has changed and we don't want to honor our obligations anymore. And so it is it is a little odd. Odd might not be the right word, but that Florida State and Clemson wouldn't want to honor their obligations. But to answer your question, it sort of depends on what ESPN and ACC have in terms of a contract as to what ESPN can force.

What outs do either side have? Is the contract terminable by either party if certain metrics are not met? Right. And so without actually seeing the contract, none of us will really know what kind of leverage is ESPN have here? Hopefully the AC ACC lawyers and the institutions did a good enough job to ensure that ESPN is bound to pay the amount they've committed to pay. And that they they can't sort of terminate it at will or get out of it if certain metrics aren't hit. So that ESPN doesn't have that sort of leverage without seeing those deals. We really don't know at this point.

All right. So hypothetically, there is an out in the contract after, I believe, either 26 or 27, where ESPN could, if they choose to not pick up the option, if the contract would end there, thus ending the grant of rights, which ties Florida State and Clemson to the league and everybody else to the ACC at that point. Could if ESPN tells Jim Phillips you either agree to this or we're not picking up the option, is that what what is that considered? Yeah. So the way that I think that would happen, we're both speculating right now.

Neither of us in the room. Right. We're sort of guessing as to how this is playing out. I am certain that the good folks at ESPN are smart enough not to make any kind of threats or to make any other coercive statements. Right. If you don't do this, we're going to do this. But they could be suggestive in nature that, hey, you know, folks at ACC, you know, we've got a renewal coming up and we're really going to have to think long and hard about whether we want to do that.

If you all don't play ball on this other thing. And so I'm sure there are, you know, ESPN holds the strains of the purse strength. Right.

Decide who's going to be generating the money and with that power gives the ability to sort of control the process. And so it would not shock me at all if ESPN was trying to broker deal that saves their golden cast. Yeah. And that ensures that their product is viable and that their advertising dollars are going to continue to flow. But in terms of whether they're, you know, forcing that deal, I'd be really shocked if ESPN was telling with dictating to the ACC or to first aid or Clemson or anyone else that you're going to do this because that would that would potentially expose them. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's just just seems like an ESPN has a vested interest in both leagues, damaging one to benefit another.

And you have both doesn't hurt your bottom line, but it definitely hurts half of the schools in question and their bottom line over time. So we'll see how this whole thing works out. Jason Miller. I appreciate Reese Brant Myers attorney with Miller, Monroe and Plyler. I appreciate your your time and we will do it again, sir. Adam, very much appreciate your time. Have a great afternoon.

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