mthoopsfan
Well-known member
[This is new to me. 600 minor league baseball players and 10 football players, so far.]
"A firm targeted MLB stars’ pay. Next up: College athletes.
“We have a 6 figure financial/NIL opportunity for you,” the messenger wrote, identifying himself as a former college quarterback and representative of a “data & analytics firm” called Big League Advantage. “Would love to discuss more if you’re interested.”
"Dexter wrote back and learned the details of an unusual offer. BLA, as the firm is known, would pay him $436,485 immediately, according to the resulting contract. In exchange, Dexter would fulfill the sort of services typical of NIL deals: signing autographs, making appearances and posting branded content on social media.
But there was a catch that made the offer different from other deals emerging at the dawn of the NIL business. BLA sought much more than the right to use Dexter’s name, image and likeness. It wanted a cut of his future income: If Dexter made the NFL, he would have to pay 15 percent of his pretax salary to BLA. For the entirety of his NFL career.
Making sense of the deal meant navigating a nascent and disjointed system designed, theoretically, to help athletes make potentially life-changing financial decisions. A lawyer associated with a group of university boosters expressed concerns about the agreement, records and interviews show. But the University of Florida official whose job it was to vet such deals gave it an unreserved green light, calling the offer “solid” and “legal.”
In its eight years of existence, BLA has signed roughly 600 minor league baseball players, including Dominican superstar Fernando Tatis Jr., who owes BLA a portion of his $340 million contract with the San Diego Padres.
The company is the product of a brash former professional baseball player, Michael Schwimer, who has simultaneously dabbled in selling sports-betting advice to gamblers and analytics services to top college teams. But the legality of BLA’s business model, experts and lawyers in the field say, has never been fully tested, and the company has forged a collision course with an NIL industry already plagued by scandal and legal uncertainty.
Dexter is one of at least 10 college football players to sign an agreement with BLA, according to the company’s website and social media postings. Five are still in school, and five are in the NFL, with contracts worth an estimated $30 million. Dexter has claimed in a lawsuit against BLA that his deal was illegal, including that it violated Florida state law at the time that barred NIL contracts from having ramifications beyond a player’s college career.
But he also acknowledged that BLA has put NIL deals on hold until the dispute is resolved, blaming “massive brand damage” caused by Dexter and confusion among university officials as to whether the contracts are legal."
"A firm targeted MLB stars’ pay. Next up: College athletes.
Big League Advantage made waves paying baseball prospects for a cut of their future pay. Now it’s stirring controversy in the murky NIL market."
"And then the Facebook message landed.“We have a 6 figure financial/NIL opportunity for you,” the messenger wrote, identifying himself as a former college quarterback and representative of a “data & analytics firm” called Big League Advantage. “Would love to discuss more if you’re interested.”
"Dexter wrote back and learned the details of an unusual offer. BLA, as the firm is known, would pay him $436,485 immediately, according to the resulting contract. In exchange, Dexter would fulfill the sort of services typical of NIL deals: signing autographs, making appearances and posting branded content on social media.
But there was a catch that made the offer different from other deals emerging at the dawn of the NIL business. BLA sought much more than the right to use Dexter’s name, image and likeness. It wanted a cut of his future income: If Dexter made the NFL, he would have to pay 15 percent of his pretax salary to BLA. For the entirety of his NFL career.
Making sense of the deal meant navigating a nascent and disjointed system designed, theoretically, to help athletes make potentially life-changing financial decisions. A lawyer associated with a group of university boosters expressed concerns about the agreement, records and interviews show. But the University of Florida official whose job it was to vet such deals gave it an unreserved green light, calling the offer “solid” and “legal.”
In its eight years of existence, BLA has signed roughly 600 minor league baseball players, including Dominican superstar Fernando Tatis Jr., who owes BLA a portion of his $340 million contract with the San Diego Padres.
The company is the product of a brash former professional baseball player, Michael Schwimer, who has simultaneously dabbled in selling sports-betting advice to gamblers and analytics services to top college teams. But the legality of BLA’s business model, experts and lawyers in the field say, has never been fully tested, and the company has forged a collision course with an NIL industry already plagued by scandal and legal uncertainty.
Dexter is one of at least 10 college football players to sign an agreement with BLA, according to the company’s website and social media postings. Five are still in school, and five are in the NFL, with contracts worth an estimated $30 million. Dexter has claimed in a lawsuit against BLA that his deal was illegal, including that it violated Florida state law at the time that barred NIL contracts from having ramifications beyond a player’s college career.
But he also acknowledged that BLA has put NIL deals on hold until the dispute is resolved, blaming “massive brand damage” caused by Dexter and confusion among university officials as to whether the contracts are legal."
