Wisconsin – When thinking of controversial topics in sports, transfers and the transfer portal is becoming a big one. So to add even more controversy such as tampering, things can get tricky fast.
Xavier Lucas, college football player, has seemingly broken his contract with Wisconsin to go to Miami, so Wisconsin has taken legal actions against the university. Lucas just signed a contract with Wisconsin in December, and school officials claim that representatives from Miami visited Lucas’ home and offered him money to switch schools before the 2 year contract came to an end, when Wisconsin refused to put his name into the portal.
Now the question is if the NIL, name-image-likeness, deals can be the reason a student athlete gets held back at their schools and it does not have to be a deal where the university pays them.
One of Wisconsin’s big reasons for filing the suit is that they believe that the one of the only ways to keep making sure the NCAA sport scene can stay a level playing, is if all of the universities can respect and uphold each other’s contracts that they have. Without schools respecting each other, things could turn into chaos quickly with money being thrown at student athletes all around NCAA.
Of course there are a lot of opinions, and personally being a sport management major and business minor, we have researched the effects of the transfer portal. To me, it is something I think needs some regulation. You see athletes go to 2, 3, 4, and even larger numbers of different schools during their time at college. This not only affects their education, but it can affect their mental health. While your mental health can be a reason for wanting to switch schools, I think it is clear that these young adults just rush into making college decisions based solely on money and not thinking about what they truly want.
I am sure this will not be the last time we see more headlines such as this one in the near future.
SmeeSports 