Chances are that most sports fans didn’t know who Matthew Sluka was when they woke up on Wednesday morning. Those paying close attention to UNLV’s 3-0 start and handicapping the Rebels’ early College Football Playoff odds were probably the only people who knew much about the UNLV quarterback, who transferred there this offseason from Holy Cross.
But now, after announcing that he would not play any more games for the Rebels over an NIL dispute, Sluka has become something of a lightning rod.
Depending on who’s talking, he’s either all that’s wrong with kids these days, quitting on his team midseason because he’s chasing a buck, or he’s the victim of a system easily exploited by third parties and bad actors that promise money they don’t have to players. Either side of that argument could make a case for NIL quote-unquote ruining college football.
— Matthew Sluka (@MatthewSluka) September 25, 2024
The truth, as is often the case, is somewhere in between. We still don’t know exactly what happened, but we do know that Sluka’s agent, Marcus Cromartie, told ESPN that Sluka was “verbally promised” a minimum of $100,000 by a UNLV assistant coach (later identified as offensive coordinator Brennan Marion) if Sluka transferred to the Rebels. Meanwhile, Rob Sine, the CEO of Blueprint Sports, which operates UNLV’s collective, told Yahoo Sports that the collective never agreed to a $100,000 deal with Sluka at all. Sine said the collective made a payment of $3,000 to Sluka and had been discussing a $3,000 monthly payment with the quarterback before he announced his intention to redshirt the rest of the season over “commitments” that were not fulfilled. Sine also said that Cromartie was not registered as an agent in the state of Nevada.
A source with knowledge of the conversations confirmed to NBC Sports that there was nothing in writing regarding a $100,000 deal between Sluka and the UNLV collective.
Statement from Blueprint Sports, which oversees UNLV's collective, on Matthew Sluka: pic.twitter.com/wloloyFqWV
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 25, 2024
There are several lessons to take away from this messy, messy situation, starting with one that is useful for any worker in any profession: Always get everything in writing. Even if NIL deals sometimes begin as handshake agreements, the best legal protection any player is going to have is a written offer/agreement. We’ve seen multiple lawsuits in the NIL area involving players who allege that they were not paid what their collectives agreed to pay them. It is more common than you’d think to have a collective promise money it does not currently have on hand — and then raise said money after the deal is done. (And maybe not raise all the money required to cover it …)
Ultimately, there might be multiple parties at fault in the Sluka situation. We’ll have to wait for more information to come out, but even if it does, we still may be left with a he-said/they-said situation at the end of the day. Without a signed contract, it’s hard to evaluate the situation fully.
But it is just that point that I keep coming back to. An employment contract between the school itself and Sluka would have avoided a number of the issues in this case. You would have had a clear agreement that spells out requirements and expectations for both parties. There would be employee protections and legal recourse for one party if the other breaches the contract. (A fair and well-constructed NIL contract would also address some of these aspects as well, though the employment agreement simplifies things by cutting collectives out of the process.) In an employment model with collective bargaining, you would still always run the risk of bad actors — agents, family members, etc. trying to profit off a player — but you’d confront issues like unchecked player movement and a lawlessness regarding NIL deals in a fair and more transparent way.
Statement from UNLV Athletics, which states that the school interpreted "financial demands" from Matthew Sluka's agent "as a violation of the NCAA pay-for-play rules." pic.twitter.com/TZ4Bktpmm4
— Nicole Auerbach (@NicoleAuerbach) September 25, 2024
Employment wouldn’t fix all that ails college sports. But it’d be a step forward, and it would allow both players and schools a way out of at least some of the murkiness that has always accompanied athlete compensation (which, of course, dates back to a time well before NIL deals became legal). College sports leaders have long fought against athletes being recognized as employees, just as they fought against NIL for years instead of building a system to support it and salvage the collegiate model.
Until they recognize that employment and collective bargaining provide the path forward, stories like Sluka’s will continue to pop up, as people operate in the largely unchecked gray area. And that’s a shame for the players at the center of it all.