Florida Man Stiffs Athletes With Fake NIL Promises According To Player Suit

Florida State Seminoles men’s basketball coach Leonard Hamilton is 0-2 in conference play and 0-1 in “not getting sued over $1.5 million in alleged fraud.” In a lawsuit filed yesterday, six former FSU players allege that they were promised $250,000 each in “name, image, and likeness” money for their services. According to the complaint, that money never showed up, though Hamilton kept promising it would.

The name of a Native American tribe and “legacy of broken promises” in the same breath? Who’d have thought?

While purists pine for the old days of trapping student-athletes in four years of servitude in exchange for a scholarship while the school marketed the team for millions, the new “NIL” landscape aims to curtail some of this exploitation by authorizing payments to players for the use of their “name, image, and likeness.” It’s not a real measure of the value students bring to the school, but it curbs wildest excesses.

It’s also a tool for recruiting, with teams building promised packages to lure high school and transfer students to get the best deal. That’s where this lawsuit began:

The Plaintiffs in this matter, who were on the FSU men’s basketball roster during the 2023-24 season, were all made the same promise by Hamilton. If they committed to and remained enrolled at FSU, performing for the men’s basketball team, then they would each receive $250,000.00. Hamilton promised this sum of money directly and reinforced it many times over to the Plaintiffs and their family members.

According to the complaint, once the players realized that they weren’t going to get paid, they decided to boycott practice before the Duke game and potentially sit out the game entirely.

Hamilton panicked. In a team meeting where all scholarship players were present, Hamilton reiterated that each player would be paid $250,000.00 and that it would hit their accounts the following week. Hamilton stated that he understood why the players were frustrated and committed to fully paying each player $250,000.00 before the conclusion of the 2023-24 men’s basketball season.

What’s the line from Popeye? “I will gladly pay you Tuesday for another 40 minutes of basketball today”? The players relented and played the game. The money, they say, never arrived.

Worse, the players claim that the executive in charge of the school’s official NIL collective knew about this promise being made outside of his direct control:

Every player on FSU’s 2023-24 men’s basketball team relied on Hamilton’s constant and repeated promises to their detriment. Will Cowan, an executive of FSU’s NIL collective “Rising Spear” has actual knowledge of Hamilton’s promises to make the $250,000.00 per player payment, with the money purportedly coming from Hamilton’s “business partners,” and wrote to Jalen Warley, after he expressed his intention to enter the transfer portal, “I promise you if the money comes in from that business, I will pay every player on the team no matter where the transfer is.”

The complaint asserts breach of contract, promissory estoppel, fraudulent inducement, and negligent misrepresentations claims against the coach.

NIL rights have, in general, improved the college sports landscape, but the lack of consistent rules and the opportunity for shenanigans have given rise to stories like this one. The complaint notes cases at UNLV, Tulsa, and the University of Florida — it was always going to keep coming back to Florida — where athletes allege NIL agreement breaches.

So this won’t be the last time we hear allegations like these.

[Disclosure: The players are represented by Darren Heitner, who has in the past written columns for Above the Law. He has not communicated with us at all regarding this case.]

Florida State Basketballers Sue Coach Over Unpaid NIL Cash [Bloomberg Law News]