“NIL-recruiting ban,” taking the same aggressive posture of the University of Tennessee as it confronts a new NCAA investigation into whether it violated athletics recruiting rules. The attorney general’s lawsuit was filed in the Eastern District of Tennessee federal court. It mentions the UT investigation as an example of the “unlawful restriction” of the NCAA’s NIL policy. Skrmetti told Knox News, part of the USA TODAY Network, that “we sued to protect the rights of current and future Tennessee student-athletes from Memphis to Mountain City, from Union City to Unicoi County, from Covington to Cleveland, and everywhere in between.”
benefits for their name, image and likeness. It’s similar to the language UT Chancellor Donde Plowman used in a scathing email to NCAA President Charlie Baker on Monday denying that UT broke NCAA rules involving NIL benefits for athletes. “Vague and contradictory NCAA memos, emails and ‘guidance’ about name, image and likeness has created extraordinary chaos that student-athletes and institutions are struggling to navigate,” Plowman
Tim Meads, the attorney general’s press secretary, said in a written statement “this lawsuit is focused on upholding the law and protecting all student-athletes in Tennessee, not any given institution.” So the lawsuit and the NCAA investigation into UT are not directly connected. But this is the second time in the past 10 months that Skrmetti has challenged the NCAA in a way that supports UT. And both instances involved athletes’ NIL rights.
