That’s too general. Is there a rule that says boosters can’t be a part of the company that offers NIL deals?
It's not about whether you are a part of the company that offers NIL deals. As I have said over and over again, I am quite certain that "Dr. Pepper" is full of employees who are boosters of many, many different colleges.
It is the degree of John's involvement. It is the timing of his involvement. It is the personal publicity (Ruiz's own social media, as opposed to a corporate press release from the company itself) that are the things that are drawing attention for POTENTIAL "retroactive rules violations".
Again, there are far too many people who have oversimplified this.
---"The Supreme Court has ruled on this." WRONG. The Supreme Court case involved UNIVERSITY-PROVIDED benefits (i.e., academic achievement awards), not NIL. The NIL rule changes were created by the NCAA itself, not a Supreme Court ruling.
---"The NCAA can't do anything, because they've let other cases slip by." Uh, sure, and when has that ever stopped them? Did the NCAA try to hammer us for Nevin and then slam us for adidas WHILE AT THE SAME TIME letting a lot of other stuff slide by at SEC schools? **** right they did.
---"There is no way to distinguish between brand-new NIL rules and decades-old booster/recruiting/contact rules." Well, the NCAA seems confident that they can do it, so maybe we shouldn't just assume that it can't be done.
NIL was passed with very little framework. OK. And now, the NCAA wants to pass retroactive rules. And while that sucks, it certainly appears that it is possible they could do so, especially since it seems like there are MORE member institutions who are ****ed off about NIL abuses than there are member institutions who are HAPPY with how things are going.
Do not be shocked to see time-distance-person restrictions put into place on NIL. The NCAA can easily say "we accept NIL, we love NIL, but NO NIL UNTIL AFTER YOU SIGN WITH A COLLEGE". And I have little doubt that a tailored rule, that is based on decades worth of ACCEPTED rule-making related to boosters and recruiting and contact, would pass muster with the Supreme Court.
Again, people need to read Alston...people need to read the rationale...and then people need to compare it to a situation where the NCAA will ALLOW student-athletes to GORGE themselves on 4 or 5 years worth of NIL earnings, so long as they do not do so during the recruiting period by meeting with university boosters.
I've laid out the framework for how LifeWallet could do everything WITHOUT violating any existing or future rules. Hire a PR/Marketing VP who didn't go to UM, and let that person set up all the NIL deals. Do NOT have John Ruiz take pictures with every recruit. Use CORPORATE accounting, use CORPORATE public relations and marketing channels, use CORPORATE social media.
Instead, we have every thinks-he-knows-how-to-exploit-loopholes porster telling us how John Ruiz has created massive corporate value via his personal social media postings. And whether that is true or not, it is the blurring of lines that the NCAA will TRY to attack. Not sure if they will ultimately succeed or not, but why should anyone want to gamble here? Use the corporation to create SEPARATION from the individual and LIMITED LIABILITY. It is, quite literally, the reason that corporations were invented.
