What does Wisconsin really want?
If they want Lucas to play football for them, they can’t force it with a lawsuit. Courts won’t order specific performance of personal services because it’s one step removed from slavery.
If they want Lucas to play anywhere but Miami, they need the NCAA to block him. But there is no basis for that in the NCAA rules or past precedent. The worst penalty for tampering is a slap on the wrist. And the NCAA has already signaled they aren’t getting involved, because they don’t want to get sued and lose again. If anything, Wisconsin violated NCAA rules by not entering Lucas into the Portal as required by the by-laws.
If Wisconsin wants money from Miami, they need to show the existence of a binding contract and damages. There is no binding contract because the MOU was contingent on the settlement being approved and Lucas being enrolled at Wisconsin. He also never got paid.
And even if the contract was binding, how was Wisconsin damaged? They can’t say he was an employee contracted to play football. Are they going to say they lost millions in marketing value? It’s absurd.
It seems that Wisconsin is mad about losing the player, and the Big 10 is mad at the ACC for not playing the game. They want this to look like a mess so they can ask Congress to clean it up.
But the problem is the NCAA itself. Its business model is illegal. If Congress doesn’t protect them from getting sued, they will eventually collapse under the weight of litigation.
Just make it professional already. Keep all the school ties that make college football unique, allow the players to negotiate the rules with the coaches and schools, and get real business people involved. It’s inevitable.
. On top of it, they didn’t follow the ncaa rules on the ncaa side of it.
