With NIL money flying and deals being broken often, it’s a wonder more lawsuits haven’t been filed by college athletes or the schools paying them. But the first such scenario at Maryland has arrived, with former star basketball player Ja’Kobi Gillespie suing for NIL payments he claims he’s owed.

The Baltimore Sun’s Taylor Lyons reported that the former Terps point guard, who transferred to Tennessee after the season, is suing Blueprint Sports — the outside company that manages much of the school’s NIL operations — because did not receive the final payments for his deal, despite that it has no clause stating the deal wouldn’t be paid out if he transferred elsewhere. He wrote: 

“Blueprint, which says on its website it works with more than 70 college athletic departments, has partnered with Maryland since 2023. The school announced a “multiyear partnership extension” with the collective last month.

Connor and Byron Gillespie told The Sun that Blueprint is refusing to honor Ja’Kobi Gillespie’s NIL contract that he signed with the collective before last season. They said the contract did not have a clause that terminated the agreement if he entered the transfer portal, which he did days after Willard left to become the coach at Villanova on March 30.”

Ja’Kobi Gillespie was one of Maryland’s best players, earning second-team all-Big Ten honors after averaging 14.7 points and 4.8 assists per game on 45.3 percent shooting overall and 40.7 percent from three. His deal was worth around $600,000 for the year, leaving an unpaid balance of $100,000, sources told InsideMDSports. Lyons reported that Blueprint offered to settle for one-quarter of the remaining amount; the company says there was a clause that negated the remainder of payments because Gillespie transferred, while the player’s camp says there was no such deal.

Byron Gillespie referenced the issue to IMS in April, when he also criticized Willard for how his departure went down.

“We were smart and our lawyer/agent kept the original contract. They added language in [after the fact], because his wasn’t like the other agreements. Most said once you enter the portal, it nulls the agreement. Ours didn’t,” he wrote in a text. 

What I’m Hearing: Early reviews of new-look Maryland basketball and the deal with Zion Elee

On Willard’s sketchy departure, he said in that April interview: “The coaching circle talks … I knew he was gone when we were in Seattle. I understand taking a job that’s better for you and your family. I just wish it didn’t come out and cause a distraction during such a great run … Over and over he told them that. [That] he was using it for leverage [to get a new deal from Maryland]. All the way ’til the last game. He told Ja’Kobi that Saturday night [two days after the Sweet 16 loss] he had decided to take it.”

The elder Gillespie told Lyons that Blueprint’s failure to pay gives credence to Willard’s complaints before he left, about Maryland not having enough NIL money. And Gillespie’s mother, Heather Johnson, told IMS: “We loved it there and I’m just so disappointed in a few different ways. Ja’Kobi did his job.”

But the best quote of the story came from booster Harry Geller, who ran the point on the basketball program’s NIL negotiations before Willard left, bout Willard and former AD Damon Evans, now both gone.

“There was always a rift,” Geller told the Sun. “Willard had an attitude about it the whole time and Damon didn’t do much to help it. The two of them went at it. They butted heads from the beginning. In the end, they both had exit strategies and Maryland got screwed.”

Geller said in an April radio interview that Maryland’s NIL budget was significant.

“We had a pretty competitive NIL, all donor-based fundraising, and I think his his biggest complaint was a lot of other schools were assisting the NIL collectives and Maryland wasn’t. They kind of left us, myself and the other guys that run and women that run the Turtle NIL and the athletic foundation, to ourselves to run it,” he said. “as far as dollars spent this year, we were probably in the lower part of the top half of the Big Ten. There was schools certainly ahead of us. Indiana spent a lot more money than we did, and look where that got them. And some schools spent less, but I would say we were probably five, six, seven in the Big Ten out of 18 schools.

“And I think Buzz is coming in into a better situation. I think he was a very good hire. He’s won everywhere he’s been. I really applauded the administration for moving quickly on it because there’s – this year is an unusual year for NIL because there, the NCAA is phasing out all collectives July 1, including ours. Until then, you have an opportunity to raise money and sort of pre-pay for next year. So the player amounts are hyper-inflated right now, and it should level off to more of a de facto salary cap next year. But I thought, and I went to the administration and said, ‘Look, if you want us to pre-spend the money next year, we only have a few weeks to do it. So you really got to get moving on this hire.’ And to their credit, they were proactive about it.”

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Associated Press

Conference commissioners lauded a judge’s approval of a $2.8 billion antitrust lawsuit settlement as a means for bringing stability and fairness to an out-of-control college athletics industry but acknowledged there would be growing pains in implementing its terms.

In a 30-minute virtual news conference Monday, commissioners of the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC renewed their call for congressional action to supplement and even codify the settlement and emphasized that cooperation at every level of college sports would be necessary to make it work.

They said it was too early to address how violators of rules surrounding revenue sharing and name, image and likeness agreements would be punished and noted newly hired College Sports Commission CEO Bryan Seeley would play a major role in determining penalties.

The new era of college athletics has arrived after U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken gave final approval Friday night to what’s known as House vs. NCAA. Beginning July 1, each school can share up to about $20.5 million with their athletes and third-party NIL deals worth $600 or more will be analyzed to make sure they pay appropriate “market value” for the services being provided by athletes.

Some of the topics addressed Monday:

Binding conferences to terms

The conferences drafted a document that would bind institutions to enforcement policies even if their state laws are contradictory. It would require schools to waive their right to pursue legal challenges against the CSC. It also would exempt the commission from lawsuits from member schools over enforcement decisions, instead offering arbitration as the main settlement option.

Consequences for not signing the agreement would include risking the loss of league membership and participation against other teams from the Power Four conferences.

Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark said the document remains a work in progress but that he’s gotten no pushback from his schools.

“I look to get that executed here in short order,” he said, “and know it will be very necessary for all the conferences to execute as well.”

Directives on revenue sharing

There has been no directive given to individual schools on how to determine the allocation of revenue-sharing payments, commissioners said. It’s widely acknowledged that athletes in football and basketball are expected to receive the majority of the money.

“I know for all five of us no one is forgetting about their Olympic sports and continuing to make sure we’ve invested a high level for all of our sports,” ACC Commissioner Jim Phillips said.

College Sports Commission CEO

The commissioners said Seeley, as Major League Baseball executive vice president of legal and operations, was uniquely qualified to lead the CSC, which is charged with making sure schools adhere to the rules.

“Culture doesn’t change overnight,” Seeley told The Athletic over the weekend. “I don’t expect that to happen overnight, but I do think that the schools that have signed on to the settlement want rules and want rules to be enforced. Otherwise they wouldn’t have signed on to the settlement. I think student-athletes want a different system. So I think there is a desire for rules enforcement. There’s a desire for transparency.”

Sankey said Seeley is well-versed in areas of implementation, development and adjustment of rules and in NIL disputes requiring arbitration.

Yormark said: “You want people not to run away from a situation but to run to a situation. He ran here, and he’s very passionate to make a difference and to course correct what’s been going on in the industry.”

Skepticism about enforcement

Deloitte’s “NIL Go” program and LBI Software will track NIL deals and revenue-sharing contracts, and the commissioners shot down skepticism about the ability of those tools to enforce terms of the settlement. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said football and basketball coaches he spoke with in February were unanimous in wanting regulation.

“They have the responsibility to make what they asked for work,” he said.

Congressional action

NCAA President Charlie Baker has been pushing Congress for a limited antitrust exemption that would protect college sports from another series of lawsuits, and the commissioners want a uniform federal NIL law that would supersede wide-ranging state laws.

“We’re not going to have Final Fours and College Football Playoffs and College World Series with 50 different standards,” Sankey said, “so that’s a starting point.”

Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti said the willingness of administrators to modernize the college athletics model should prompt federal lawmakers to move on codifying the settlement.

Sankey’s meeting with Trump

Sankey confirmed a Yahoo Sports report that he and Notre Dame athletic director Pete Bevacqua played golf with President Donald Trump on Sunday. Sankey said he appreciates Trump’s interest in college sports and that it was helpful to share perspectives on the path forward. Trump reportedly considered a presidential commission on college sports earlier this year.

Sankey declined to disclose details of their talks.

“I think those are best left for the moment on the golf course,” he said.

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AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports