Now’s the Time to Sue

So both the Iamleava brothers have entered the Transfer Portal bolting from their contracts with Tennessee and Arkansas. Now the two colleges are contemplating civil suits for breach of contract. My opinion: go for it. If it’s a business then it’s a business and as such when you sign a contract to play for a team and then bolt to another there should be contractual consequences. In fact, the acquiring school should have to make some sort of compensation payment to the losing school, just like professional teams do.

Speaking of payments; it has been pointed out that Nico Iamaleava will probably make less at UCLA than he did at Tennessee in part because Tennessee has no state income tax while California residents pay 13.3% in addition to the federal income tax. That’s the top rate for anyone making over a million dollars in a given year. If he makes a million dollars next year he could have had more than $130,000 extra if he had stayed in Tennessee.

And on the subject of taxes; how long before states include visiting paid college players on their state income tax collection roles? You know when a New England Patriot plays in Los Angeles they have pay an income tax on the amount of their salary divided by the number of games in a season. If they play one game in CA and the season is seventeen games they have to pay state tax on 1/17 of their annual salary. Same with many other states with professional teams be it football, baseball, basketball or hockey. They all have to pay income tax for any monies earned in the state during playing games there. Can such requirements for paid college players be far behind?

Yep, it’s time for order to be imposed on the NIL/Transfer Portal and that could begin with breach of contract suits against the highly paid players. For example Tennessee could contest a suit on the fact that with Nico they went to the College Football Playoffs and had built their entire 2025 playbook around him. There would be, in my opinion, discoverable damages done to the Tennessee program with him bolting in the Spring. Yes sir, or ma’am as the case may be, it’s time for the colleges to get on top of this issue. Turn the running of the team over to the Business school. Contracts, payments, et cetera.