Jaden Rashada sues Billy Napier, Florida booster over NIL debacle
What to make of the first NIL lawsuit brought by a player
The NCAA’s legal issues are a constant on this newsletter, especially as it pertains to NIL rights and player activism. But this is a first. Former Florida commit and current Georgia quarterback Jaden Rashada has filed a lawsuit against Gators head coach Billy Napier and a university booster over a proposed NIL deal.
As far as I could find, this is the first time an active player has sued a booster and head coach over a botched NIL deal. Most of the time, we see these lawsuits come years after or as retroactive claims like the one brought in House v. NCAA.
NIL Gone Wrong
The crux of this lawsuit stems from a $13.85 million NIL deal that the Gator Collective - the third-party NIL collective that negotiates deals with Florida athletes - entered into with Rashada when he was still in high school.
Rashada, for many, is the face of the NIL wild west recruiting. The four-star quarterback, ranked 44th overall in the 2023 class by 247Sports, was seeking a big payday in college. His father, a former football player at Arizona State, reached out to Orange County attorney Mike Caspino, who negotiated an $8 million NIL deal with Tennessee for quarterback Nico Iamaleava that landed the Vols in hot water and eventually lead to the injunction that prevents the NCAA from enforcing any and all NIL-related regulations. According to The Athletic, multiple coaches that met with Rashada and his father, who would inquire about NIL deals. A few days later, Caspino would reach out to the school seeking a multimillion dollar deal to continue recruiting Rashada. Most pulled out, but Jaden originally committed to the Miami Hurricanes with a $9.5 million NIL deal in place with a Miami collective.
Rashada, however, didn’t officially close off his recruiting. While he didn’t take any official visits, he kept back channels open from the other school he was very interested in: Florida.
Four months later, Florida’s press came to fruition and Rashada flipped from Miami to the Gators with a shiny new NIL deal in hand, this one amounting to $13.85 million over four years. According to The New York Times, Rashada’s deal was the largest known NIL deal signed by a college athlete and rivaled the rookie contract of the only quarterback taken in the first round of the NFL Draft that season in Kenny Pickett (four years, $14.1 million).
Everything seemed to be in place. Rashada got one of his preferred Florida destinations to pony up big money for his services and even got a solid $500,000 promised up front on December 5 for light NIL work like branded social media posts and autograph signing sessions.
Except, things weren’t as they seemed. On December 7, according to Rashada’s suit and a report from The Athletic at the time, the Gator Collective pulled out of the multimillion dollar deal. They sent a letter to Rashada notifying him that the deal had been terminated, but gave no reason. Apparently, Rashada’s legal team left a brutal clause in the contract that allowed the Gator Collective to break the deal “without penalty or further obligation.”
Just two weeks later came Early Signing Day, and Rashada was notably absent from the list of signees distrubuted to the media, according to The Athletic. He did sign his Letter of Intent that day, though, and was officially a Gator despite his $13.8 million contract flowing down the drain.
The Athletic goes on to report that Rashada returned to California with his family ahead of the January 13 deadline to enroll in the Spring semester and continued to negotiate a new NIL deal, but nothing came of it. He never enrolled and hit the portal in the Spring as a true freshman four-star recruit. Rashada landed on his father’s school and first year head coach Kenny Dillingham in Arizona State.
His true freshman year in Tempe was up-and-down. He was named the Day 1 starter and started two games before an injury shut him down for most of the year. All told, he completed 44 of 82 attempts for 485 yards, four touchdowns and three interceptions in three games. After the season, he hit the portal again as Arizona State was slammed with recruiting violations and Dillingham pulled Michigan State transfer Sam Leavitt in as competition. Rashada has since committed to Georgia and factors to be the main backup to Carson Beck.
The Suit
The lawsuit filed by Rashada stems from that nixed agreement with the Gator Collective, which no longer exists. The suit names Florida head coach Billy Napier and top booster Hugh Hathcock as defendants, alleging fraudulent misrepresentation and inducement, aiding and abetting fraud, negligent misrepresentations, tortious interference with a business relationship or contract, aiding and abetting tortious interference, and vicarious liability, according to AP News.
We all know who Napier is, but who is Hathcock? According to the On3 profile of the Gator Guard, the successor to the Gator Collective, Hathcock was the CEO of the organization that negotiated directly with Rashada and pulled out of this deal. He also serves on the advisory board for the current Florida collective, Florida Victorious.
Just looking at Hathcock’s Twitter account makes it clear that he was the one who negotiated directly with Rashada, his father, and Caspino. Take for instance this post hours before Rashada announced his committment to Florida:
With the knowledge that Hathcock was the primary negotiator for the Gator Collective, which make sense based on his Twitter and standing within the organization as CEO, it’s easy to see why Rashada and his legal team have directly sued Hathcock. But what about Napier?
The lawsuit, according to ESPN’s Paula Lavigne and Dan Murphy, alleges that Napier promised Rashada’s father a “$1 million ‘partial payment’ upon signing” which was never received.
What does this mean for Florida and Napier?
If we take the lawsuit at face value, there’s a lot for Florida to worry about here. For one, having Napier directly involved in the NIL negotiations with Rashada is blantantly illegal. Even after the preliminary injunction granted in the lawsuit brought by Tennessee and Virignia attorneys general, coaches and direct employees of schools are expressly prohibited from negotiating with athletes.
There’s also the using of NIL deals as a recruiting enticement, which is also prohibited by the NCAA.
Perhaps biggest of all is the fact that Florida is already under investigation by the NCAA relating to Rashada’s botched recruitment. A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by The Associated Press unveiled a letter from the NCAA dated June 9, 2023 informing Florida of a pending investigation into their football program. According to AP News, “the NCAA asked the school not to conduct its own investigation.”
It’s important to note that this is the second NCAA investigation on the Florida program in four years after Dan Mullen’s regime was hit with recruiting violations from two 2019 incidents. The program and Mullen were slapped with a bevy of punishments, but they were not placed on probation, which means the dreaded “death penalty” is not on the table, even if the NCAA was able to continue the investigation.
Once of the only silver linings for Florida is that the NCAA is unable to continue their investigation into Rashada’s recruitment and NIL deals. As of March 1, the NCAA was forced to put a stop to any and all NIL-related investigations. This includes the pending investigation on Florida. With the temporary injunction in place from the Tennesse-Virginia lawsuit, there is no end it sight to this pause on investigations.
However, if Florida wanted to get out of the Billy Napier contract, this could be the out they were looking for. A pending investigation and lawsuit could trigger a for-cause firing, but again, this is only if Florida wants it.
What does this mean for Rashada?
Likely not much, in all honesty.
We don’t know much about how this process would work, as this is the first suit ever brought by a current athlete against a school for their NIL deals. Whether or not Rashada’s legal team, headlined by Rusty Hardin, famous for his defence of Deshaun Watson in his sexual assault cases, is able to get anything from this case is a different story.
I’m not a lawyer, nor have I done contract work, but my basic understanding of contract law is that a contract is a legal binding document. Rashada signed a deal that gave the Gator Collective an out, and they used it. Plain and simple. Is there some angle Hardin could argue to get a settlement or payout for his client? Maybe, but it just doesn’t seem likely to me.
Instead, the focus on Rashada should be on football. He’s not likely to see the field much this season as he sits behind Carson Beck, but perhaps a year in wait and learning a new system will do him well. There’s no disputing his talent, but lawsuits and legal proceedings can drag on a person.
Is this going to be a trend?
Now this is where it gets interesting.
There’s been a trend recently of players exposing bad or predatory NIL deals to warn incoming athletes that NIL may not be all it is cracked up to be.
Chicago Bears defensive tackle Gervon Dexter was forced into a NIL deal described by Florida Rep. Chip LaMarca, who proposed the initial NIL deal that was signed into state law, as “a predatory loan.” His deal with Big League Advance Fund (BLA) included Dexter paying BLA 15% of his pre-tax NFL earning for the next 25 years for a one-time NIL payment of $436,485. Based on LaMarca’s bill, Dexter’s deal with BLA would be illegal.
More recently, Ole Miss transfer defensive tackle Walter Nolen posted on his Instagram, "PSA if u goint to A&M read ur contract thoroughly [hit me up] if u got questions just tryna help (sic).” Nolen’s warning came in the wake of the highly touted Texas A&M 2021-22 recruiting class’s exodus from College Station.
It’s clear that there are some predatory NIL deals, and while most are good-natured and hold to their word, perhaps Rashada’s suit could spark more athletes to come forward and share their stories. Part of having NIL oversight isn’t to restrict the free market, it’s to eliminate any bad actors that may be lurking. While we’d like to think that there are no bad actors in college sports, that’s just plain incorrect. Just look at Dexter’s deal for evidence of these predatory deals.
We don’t know how the Rashada saga is going to turn out. This could be the start of a new trend where players speak up. Or, this could be a one-off mistake. It could cost Napier his job, or it could be just another note on his biography. There’s no way to know. But, make no mistake, Jaden Rashada is the face of the NIL story. The good and the bad.
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