The NCAA has finally taken their first action on NIL. The action was taken against Miami, which you might remember as the school that was leading the way back in 2021 on NIL, like within the first week or two of NIL's existence. Some of the most notable headlines around Miami included paying $500k for a basketball transfer, giving money to all 85 players on the football roster, and plenty of rumors around him throwing money at football recruits. This was mostly run by their prominent mega-booster, John Ruiz, who's identified in the article as having signed 100+ players to his company.
https://theathletic.com/4248777/2023/02/24/miami-ncaa-nil-rules-penalties/
The NCAA had an investigation and has finalized the punishment. The full information is in the articles, but the very short version is this: Football got nothing, men's basketball got nothing, women's basketball had to pay some fines and lost a few official visits. No scholarship losses, no forfeited games, no bowl/tourney bans, no penalties on the players, no penalties on the booster.
One interesting thing is that the NCAA added three LARGE FONT BOLD paragraphs to their description which basically state that they're letting Miami off lightly because this infraction happened before the recent NCAA NIL legislation passed and they would be much more serious going forwards. Maybe they will, maybe they won't, but this penalty certainly isn't making anybody pump the brakes on their NIL operation.
Looking forward, if you were hoping the NCAA would take some strong action about NIL, I think the most illuminating part of this entire saga is this quote from the ESPN article right here, by the booster John Ruiz himself:
"It has little to no substance and no effect on me at all," Ruiz said of the sanctions announced Friday. "It's mostly focused on the coach, and that's unfortunate. But it doesn't affect me or my business. If it did, I'd be suing the NCAA and it wouldn't be a good day for them." (...) Ruiz said he does not intend to change the way he uses college athletes as endorsers for his business and noted that he did not think any attempt by the NCAA to prevent him from conducting his business would stand up to a lawsuit.
I am not a lawyer so I will refrain from commenting on his assessment of the NCAA's chances in court. But I will note that John Ruiz made his billions as a trial lawyer by suing major health care companies and other big institutions, so at the very least, we can say that he'll be fully willing to do as he says and drag the NCAA into court if they try to enforce real penalties in the future.
