The University of Tennessee’s annual spring football game last week was supposed to be a preview of what to expect on the field.
The Volunteers were coming off a berth in last season’s College Football Playoff and returned the quarterback who led them there: Nico Iamaleava.
By kickoff, however, Iamaleava wasn’t welcome on the team anymore. And the reason why could be a preview of what is to come across major college sports.
According to multiple reports, Iamaleava was attempting to renegotiate the roughly $2 million he received annually in name, image and likeness payments to around $4 million when news of the discussions erupted into public view. And when Iamaleava did not show up for practice last Friday — a tactic described by some as a holdout — Volunteers coach Josh Heupel said he viewed the relationship as irreparably severed.
“No one is bigger than the ‘Power T,’” Heupel said, referencing the school’s logo.
Iamaleava has since entered the transfer portal and is expected to join UCLA, The Athletic reported Wednesday, although his market value could have taken a hit. ESPN reported Thursday that “what UCLA was prepared to offer him wasn’t remotely close” to his $4 million target.
Though the breakdown between Iamaleava and Tennessee was a product of elements unique to that relationship, it also stood out to experts as emblematic of broader changes that have virtually demolished the NCAA’s vow of amateurism, and in the process created a more fractious dynamic between college athletes and the schools they represent.
“We are in a state of flux in college athletics right now,” Gabe Feldman, the director of Tulane’s sports law program and the school’s associate provost for NCAA compliance, wrote by email. “Even if the House settlement is approved, we are likely seeing the beginning of a new era of change and chaos, not the end.”
That power dynamic changed in 2021, when a unanimous Supreme Court decision ruled the NCAA had violated antitrust laws by blocking how much aid athletes could receive. And that summer, the NCAA allowed athletes to receive compensation for the use of their name, image and likeness for the first time.
Even before his reported holdout, Iamaleava had already embodied the changing landscape of college athletics. He was one of the first players to cash in on the NCAA’s new rules allowing NIL in 2022, when he signed a deal with a collective connected to Tennessee worth a reported $8 million while still in high school near Los Angeles. When the NCAA began looking into potential recruiting infractions, Tennessee’s state attorney general sued the NCAA over its ban on using NIL inducements during recruiting — and won.
Tennessee’s attorney general celebrated that court victory in mid-March. Yet less than one month later, the quarterback whose recruitment was linked to the heart of the suit was headed out of Knoxville, this time as a different type of NIL trendsetter.
“The case highlights the tension between the original intent of NIL (allowing athletes to monetize their personal brand) and what it has morphed into — essentially a pay-for-play system with compensation negotiations that increasingly resemble professional sports,” Darren Heitner, a prominent attorney who advises athletes and their representatives on NIL, said by email.
“It is the byproduct of ignoring a free market that has developed without any protections for what for all intents and purposes are employers, because stakeholders refuse to recognize college athletes as employees.”
NIL arrangements typically involve the athlete, their representative and the entity putting up the money, Heitner said, and such discussions often take place between an athlete’s representative and a collective, a third-party organization often made up of deep-pocketed university boosters that broker deals to avoid schools paying athletes — whom schools contend are not employees — themselves.
Renegotiations have taken place behind the scenes before, Heitner said. Yet the Tennessee saga crossed into new territory, with the attorney saying that “the public nature and apparent leverage tactics used in this case represent a concerning escalation.”
“What makes this particularly troubling is that we’re seeing what amounts to a contractual holdout, similar to professional sports, but without the legal protections and established processes that exist in professional leagues,” Heitner said. “This case crosses a threshold in that it so blatantly exposes how the current system can be manipulated, sometimes to the detriment of the athletes themselves when they do not have qualified and reputable people in their corner.”
Tennessee’s decision to stand firm was cheered by some — “If [players] want to play holdout, they might as well play get out,” Miami coach Mario Cristobal told reporters — while also criticized by former college championship coach Urban Meyer, who opined on a podcast that the school’s stand had left its depth chart “screwed.”
To Feldman, what amounted to a contract holdout in college sports “felt like an inevitability” in an era where college football players have long since begun skipping bowl games to protect their NFL draft prospects, he wrote by email. Holdouts over contract negotiations are already common in the NFL, and that is in a league with a collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players union, Feldman noted. Meanwhile, the NCAA’s power to govern has been significantly weakened in recent years after players and schools have successfully challenged old rules over eligibility and what players can and cannot accept.
“College sports was one of the most strictly regulated environments in the country and is now one of the least regulated, so it’s not a surprise to see new conflicts arise between athletes and students,” Feldman said.
That weakened governance has led to gaps. Unlike the NBA and NFL, where players unions require would-be agents to pass background checks, rules exams and meet minimum standards for education to become certified, the NCAA has few guardrails to certify agents. That can lead to representatives who prioritize short-term gain, using poor strategy over positioning a player’s long-term best interests, Heitner said. And though some universities and their collectives have begun using contract templates, the language in NIL contracts can still vary widely, he said.
“This inconsistency creates an environment where misunderstandings and disputes like the Iamaleava situation become more likely,” Heitner said.
How money is diverted inside college sports is expected to be changed even further once the House settlement, named for Grant House, a former Arizona State swimmer who is a lead plaintiff in the case against the NCAA, is approved. Under the proposed terms, schools will be allowed to share as much as $20 million in annual revenue directly with their athletes. The deal should “provide new oversight for college athletics,” Feldman said, “but there are still bumpy and uncharted waters ahead.” Still to be determined is where the House settlement will affect collectives’ and athletes’ negotiation power.
The standoff between Iamaleava and Tennessee was just one flashpoint between a school and a top athlete. But it only underscored the kinds of existential concerns Feldman has heard college athletics leaders discuss for years.
“It has been clear that significant changes were coming to college athletics,” Feldman wrote. “Now that we are on the precipice of the biggest transformation in the history of college sports, most are unsure of how this new era will play out and whether college sports will remain essentially the same going forward or will be unrecognizable because of these changes.”
