Examining the NCAA’s probe into Tennessee’s usage of NIL and that flight involving Nico The degree to which a recently disclosed NCAA probe of Tennessee sports recruitment is credible depends, at least in part, on a trip quarterback Nico Iamaleava made to Knoxville while the highly anticipated prospect was a California high school student.
Whether Tennessee breached any regulations in the recruitment process will probably depend on whether Iamaleava traveled as a UT football recruit or as a client of a sports collective that contracts athletes to NIL deals.
In a strongly worded email to NCAA President Charlie Barker that Knox News was able to get on Tuesday, UT Chancellor Donde Plowman said that UT cannot be held accountable for the activities of a sports collective that is legally permitted to sign athletes to deals. Plowman also criticized the basis of any probe.
“It is intellectually dishonest for the NCAA staff to issue guidelines that say a third-party collective/business may meet with prospective student-athletes, discuss NIL, even enter into a contract with prospective student-athletes, but at the same time say that the collective may not engage in conversations that would be of a recruiting nature,” Plowman wrote in his email.
According to Knox News, the flight, which was initially reported by The New York Times on Tuesday, may or may not have violated any laws depending on when it happened, who paid for it, and whether or not there was a valid contract in place with a collective.
Iamaleava became a client of Spyre Sports Group, a Knoxville, Tennessee-based organization, in early 2022 while he was still a junior in high school in California. For Spyre, the deal was reached “independent of the University of Tennessee or anyone in its athletics program,” attorney Tom Mars stated on Tuesday. Such agreements are legal in California, and no case has determined whether being a collective member would make it more difficult for the NCAA to keep an eye on the advantages of that collaboration—especially in light of the constantly changing NIL regulations.
Basically, Plowman warned Barker that if lawful NIL arrangements don’t take precedence over NCAA regulations, recruitment would be an absolute mess.
Any conversation regarding NIL might influence a potential student-athlete’s choice to participate in an
Iamaleava may have been able to go on a private plane provided the collective paid for it, given that NIL deals take precedence over NCAA regulations.
Across 11 sports, Spyre has signed more than 200 UT athletes.
A request for comment on Tuesday was not immediately answered by Nic, Iamaleava’s father.
“In early 2022, independent of the University of Tennessee or anyone associated with its athletics program, Spyre Sports entered into a mutually beneficial contractual relationship with Nico Iamaleava that involved a limited assignment of his NIL rights, no matter which school he chose to attend,” Mars stated in the statement on X, which was previously known Twitter. “These’representation agreements’ are becoming more and more typical. Prospective college athletes are permitted to engage into such agreements, and the parties agreed that California law would govern their contractual rights and responsibilities.”
Iamaleava began UT’s 35-0 victory against Iowa in the Citrus Bowl when starting quarterback Joe Milton withdrew from the game. Iamaleava was Tennessee’s backup quarterback the previous season. In the 2023 recruiting class, Iamaleava was rated as a five-star talent and the
