I read that he’s suing for being considered a booster.
The NCAA defines boosters as “any third-party entity that promotes an athletics program, assists with recruiting or assists with providing benefits to recruits, enrolled student-athletes or their family members.” This catch-all label could also include collectives, or groups typically founded by university alumni that pool and allocate financial resources for athletes by way of NIL contracts.
I’m assuming he’ll contend that he’s a business man who provides opportunities to further his business via marketing w/ student athletes, & this was a business arrangement, not a ploy to drive the twins to play at The University of Miami.
Unfortunately, the issue is two fold…while I applaud Mr. Ruiz for going up against the NCAA, there was this caveat that I found cringeworthy:
Some in the NIL space recently told On3 that the NCAA might actually welcome a NIL-related court case. “The best thing for the NCAA is a court case because once it is initiated by a potential booster we have the discovery process,” said Peter Schoenthal, CEO of Athliance. “Both parties are entitled to all of the discovery – aka, the evidence – involved in the case. If the right case is brought, there are certainly going to be implicating emails and text messages, which is going to allow the NCAA to say, ‘See, we told you so.’ ”
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