[Goose]

Agree that there is likely a lawsuit.  Since the College Sports Commission and the process for adjudicating NIL deals was part of a court approved settlement (the House settlement), I wonder if a subsequent court will jump in and say that no, actually, the terms of the prior settlement are null and void.  I would think it would have to be a high bar, since if one party can subsequently sue it would be a strong disincentive for sides to reach an agreement.

I’ll be curious as to what the actual lawyers here would say, but my very non-lawyer guess is that the only way someone would have a convincing case is if there is an allegation that the CSC and its mechanism is somehow subverting the House Settlement.

BC

The argument would be that the House settlement itself was unconstitutional. It placed a restriction upon two parties entering into a good-faith contract based on criteria that have no place in contractual regulation. It restrains trade that has no demonstrable harm to the public interest. 
 
The belief is that some of these NIL contracts are illegitimate because their actual intention is to funnel money to the athlete to play at a particular school. These contracts are not actually "NIL" contracts ostensibly because the buyer paid too much. Therefore the contract can't mean what it literally says. IMO this concept is legally nonsense. That would mean any contract that some arbitrator declared as "too rich" is ipso-facto somehow "invalid".  Yes, it may well be the intention is not what the contract literally says it is. However, the dollar amount of the contract can't by itself "prove" that is so. If the contract as written is not by itself improper, one can't impute nefarious purpose without real proof. The dollars alone can't do that.

[Goose]

Agree that there is likely a lawsuit.  Since the College Sports Commission and the process for adjudicating NIL deals was part of a court approved settlement (the House settlement), I wonder if a subsequent court will jump in and say that no, actually, the terms of the prior settlement are null and void.  I would think it would have to be a high bar, since if one party can subsequently sue it would be a strong disincentive for sides to reach an agreement.

I’ll be curious as to what the actual lawyers here would say, but my very non-lawyer guess is that the only way someone would have a convincing case is if there is an allegation that the CSC and its mechanism is somehow subverting the House Settlement.

BC

The argument would be that the House settlement itself was unconstitutional. It placed a restriction upon two parties entering into a good-faith contract based on criteria that have no place in contractual regulation. It restrains trade that has no demonstrable harm to the public interest. 
 
The belief is that some of these NIL contracts are illegitimate because their actual intention is to funnel money to the athlete to play at a particular school. These contracts are not actually "NIL" contracts ostensibly because the buyer paid too much. Therefore the contract can't mean what it literally says. IMO this concept is legally nonsense. That would mean any contract that some arbitrator declared as "too rich" is ipso-facto somehow "invalid".  Yes, it may well be the intention is not what the contract literally says it is. However, the dollar amount of the contract can't by itself "prove" that is so. If the contract as written is not by itself improper, one can't impute nefarious purpose without real proof. The dollars alone can't do that.