Gervon Dexter sues to get out of 25 year NIL Deal.

[Sassy Squatch]

https://www.espn.com/college-footbal...l-violated-law

The NIL contract that Chicago Bears rookie Gervon Dexter signed with a speculative investment capital company while playing at the University of Florida in 2022 violated a state NIL law in place at the time, the Florida state legislator who sponsored the bill told ESPN on Tuesday.

Dexter, a second-round draft pick, agreed to pay Big League Advance Fund (BLA) 15% of his pre-tax NFL earnings for the next 25 years in exchange for a one-time payment of $436,485 in 2022, according to a copy of a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Gainesville, Florida, on Friday.

According to published reports, Dexter signed a four-year, $6.72 million contract with the Bears on June 16, meaning he would owe BLA about $1 million over the lifetime of that deal.

Florida Rep. Chip LaMarca, who proposed the initial legislation in 2020 that allowed college athletes in Florida to profit off their name, image and likeness, described Dexter's deal as a "predatory loan."

"The deals were supposed to be that an athlete could participate in the free market and when they graduate, whether they go on to play professionally or not, any future contracts are null and void," LaMarca said. "In other words, we didn't want someone having access to someone's future without them having proper guidance and proper representation."

The original Florida NIL law, Senate Bill 646, included the following provision: "The duration of a contract for representation of an intercollegiate athlete or compensation for the use of an intercollegiate athlete's name, image or likeness may not extend beyond her or his participation in an athletic program at a postsecondary educational institution."

[HC_Chief]

Originally Posted by TwistedChief

Chiefs fans are complaining that Chris Jones isn’t showing up.

Boo ****ing hoo. Didn’t Chiefs fans understand the contract and know that he had every right to do this?

Not sure what your point is here...

CJ is under contract. By not showing up he pays both fines AND loses his weekly salary (which is subtracted from his annual cap count).

If your point is the player (CJ in this instance) signed a contract & is now obligated to it, regardless of fines & lost revenue, then yeah, sure, obvious fact is obvious.

If your point is fans are bitching because CJ is failing to meet his contractual obligations, then yeah, again, the fans have a point: him skipping out on contractual obligations is a failure on his behalf. Because, well, it IS. He is failing both himself and his team.

If your point is other, then please specify.

[TwistedChief]

Originally Posted by HC_Chief

Not sure what your point is here...

CJ is under contract. By not showing up he pays both fines AND loses his weekly salary (which is subtracted from his annual cap count).

If your point is the player (CJ in this instance) signed a contract & is now obligated to it, regardless of fines & lost revenue, then yeah, sure, obvious fact is obvious.

If your point is fans are bitching because CJ is failing to meet his contractual obligations, then yeah, again, the fans have a point: him skipping out on contractual obligations is a failure on his behalf. Because, well, it IS. He is failing both himself and his team.

If your point is other, then please specify.

Sure. The point is he has a contract that allows him to miss these games and not get paid. He's okay with that. Why are you mad if this were part of the initial agreement?

Are the Chiefs and fans being taken advantage of? Why? The organization entered into this agreement with CJ. If it didn't want to give him the option of missing games and not getting paid, it shouldn't have offered him this contract.

That's the exact argument you're making with Dexter. The guy signed a contract he probably didn't entirely understand and now is being disadvantaged because of it. You have no sympathy for that, but you feel like the Chiefs are being persecuted by CJ's actions?

Chris Jones has no contractual obligation to play for the Chiefs for the first 7 weeks to accrue a season's worth of employment. You similarly have no contractual obligation to go into work tomorrow and complete your job. It's at-will employment and he and you can choose to sleep in and just not get paid.

It's just a bit hypocritical to be so "I abide by the letter of the contract" with Dexter even though the guy was clearly being taken advantage of while castigating CJ because he's doing exactly what's allowed in his contract.

(Note: I'm not trying to argue that I like or support what CJ is doing, but I think it's pot-kettle-black to criticize Dexter as not living up to a contract when Chiefs fans don't appreciate that - as employers of CJ - the organization has given him the option to do exactly what he's doing right now.)

[dtrain]

Originally Posted by DRM08

Only reason to make such a bad deal from the player end is if he believed he would not have much of a career in the NFL.

I'd say he saw the money and didn't think about the whole deal

[ChiefsFanatic]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

I'm also guessing there's a choice of law provision within that contract that gets around that Florida statute, but that's gonna be a pretty sticky argument - those can get pretty complicated to argue in favor of.

I am pretty sure that a contract cannot override actual legislation.

[Chiefshrink]

Greed blinds the mind to it's consequences. (Hey CJ, are you listening???)

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by HC_Chief

JFC do contracts mean nothing anymore?
Dipshits sign paperwork without reading it, or understanding it (get a ****ing lawyer to review it... it costs very little to do so), then play victim when they are held accountable to the contract they signed.

Boo ****ing hoo.

Well don't laws mean anything? The Florida rep that sponsored the bill says that the deal was illegal.

You seem like an old bitter dipshit that doesn't care if people get taken advantage of, because you've never done anything dumb in your life. He was just 20 years old when he agreed to the deal and sometimes young adults don't do the best things. NIL isn't supposed to be a loan that is paid back. It's for the company to pay the player, so that it can use that players name, image, and likeness for there business.

Don't you think the world would be a better place if sleezy companies weren't allowed to prey on young people and take advantage of kids in shitty situations just trying to improve their lives? Hell, old people fall for shit all the time and they should really know better.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by ChiefsFanatic

I am pretty sure that a contract cannot override actual legislation.

Oh! I'm excited to share some completely obscure trivia that I learned the other day. This is not meant to be a dispute, and I agree with your general thought, but I read some history related to this very topic.

Apparently when the USA was being formed, a bunch of states made territorial claims west of the Appalachians. There were a lot of negotiations about this because the states that didn't make claims didn't want the other states becoming much larger than them.

Eventually, the expansionist states agreed to give up their claims. However, there was a problem with Georgia. The state legislature had sold land claims in modern-day Alabama and Mississippi while Georgia was claiming those areas, and took bribes to sell it very cheaply. After public outcry and voting the corrupt people out of office, the new state legislature passed legislation to invalidate the sales. The people who got the land cheap (presumably crooks) sued, saying it was a legal contract. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, and the Court ruled that legislation could not override a sales contract if the legislation was created after a contract.

I had to bring that up, because what are the odds that it would be relevant?

Edit: I looked it up. It was the Yazoo Land Scandal and I corrected some facts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fletcher_v._Peck

[DenverChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

You'll go down a business licensure rabbithole that I simply can't speak to at that point.

The contract terms will almost certainly contain a choice of law provision asserting any dispute will be governed by the law of X state (almost certainly not Florida). Now the other side of that coin is likely to be that there may be requirements to conduct business in Florida (i.e. registration requirements) that in some way invalidate those choice of law provisions - hard to say.

But I would think that a company that's in a position to pay an athlete $400K (and lets not act like that's not a pretty goddamn massive number for a college athlete that maybust out altogether) would also have the financial backing to make pretty sure they're on firm legal footing.

This is a contract offered in 2022 with an NIL statute passed in 2020. They had a couple years to make sure they had their ducks in a row.

I'm not gonna say 'oh poor Dexter' on this one - the guy got more money than many folks will see in their lifetimes. With the time value of money, this company will essentially break even over his rookie deal (That $430K with interest rates being what they are will double pretty easily over about 6 years) and there are precisely ZERO guarantees past that. And there were no guarantees BEFORE that rookie deal when the contract was offered.

It's the 2nd contract where there's any real return and in the meantime it's essentially an unsecured loan for nearly half a million.

Honestly, that's a business practice that, the math says, will not work over any prolonged period of time. It would take 2 or 3 bad investments to put a company like that underwater.

I'm assuming that is why this is a Federal Lawsuit

according to a copy of a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court in Gainesville, Florida

[DenverChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

The contract terms will almost certainly contain a choice of law provision asserting any dispute will be governed by the law of X state (almost certainly not Florida). Now the other side of that coin is likely to be that there may be requirements to conduct business in Florida (i.e. registration requirements) that in some way invalidate those choice of law provisions - hard to say.

I'm not a lawyer - but I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night

https://dockets.justia.com/docket/fl...cv00228/480720

28 U.S. Code § 1332 - Diversity of citizenship; amount in controversy; costs

The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of all civil actions where the matter in controversy exceeds the sum or value of $75,000, exclusive of interest and costs, and is between—

(1) citizens of different States;

....

(c) For the purposes of this section and section 1441 of this title—
(1) a corporation shall be deemed to be a citizen of every State and foreign state by which it has been incorporated and of the State or foreign state where it has its principal place of business.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/1332

[DenverChief]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Oh! I'm excited to share some completely obscure trivia that I learned the other day. This is not meant to be a dispute, and I agree with your general thought, but I read some history related to this very topic.

Apparently when the USA was being formed, a bunch of states made territorial claims west of the Appalachians. There were a lot of negotiations about this because the states that didn't make claims didn't want the other states becoming much larger than them.

Eventually, the expansionist states agreed to give up their claims. However, there was a problem with Georgia. A bunch of fraudsters had sold land claims in modern-day Alabama and Mississippi while Georgia was claiming those areas. (I don't remember why it wasn't invalidated due to fraud.) So anyway, Georgia brushed off the claims by saying that it was federal land. The feds then made some legislation that invalidated the sales, which left the buyers high and dry without their money. The case eventually went to the Supreme Court, and the Court ruled that legislation could not override a contract if the legislation was created after a contract.

I had to bring that up, because what are the odds that it would be relevant?

The article states the contract was signed when the law was already in effect. I'm assuming the lawsuit was filed in federal court because BLA is incorporated in another state while Dexter is a Florida citizen. There probably is a clause in the contract governing which state law applies. I'm assuming the argument is going come down on where was the contract communicated/executed.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by DenverChief

The article states the contract was signed when the law was already in effect. I'm assuming the lawsuit was filed in federal court because BLA is incorporated in another state while Dexter is a Florida citizen. There probably is a clause in the contract governing which state law applies. I'm assuming the argument is going come down on where was the contract communicated/executed.

That's lawyer talk. I am but a humble historian.

[TwistedChief]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

That $430K with interest rates being what they are will double pretty easily over about 6 years

First, interest rates are projected to go from the lows 5s to the mid 3s over the next 6yrs so assuming constant rates is flawed.

Second, but if you want to assume simplicity at current 5.25 spot rates, it takes you more like 13-14 years to double your money (rule of 72). For you to be right in terms of doubling your money over 6yrs, one would need to be receiving around 12% and there’s nothing remotely riskless that involves that return.

Third, that $430k is pre-tax. I think his effective federal tax rate (I’ll assume Florida so no state and local) would be about 31% which means he actually takes home a bit less than 300k of it. Meanwhile of course he’s paying out pre-tax income through the life of the deal.

[warpaint*]

That did not read like a NIL agreement, it read like a loan. But I’m no expert.

[ku_jhawk23]

Originally Posted by TwistedChief

Sure. The point is he has a contract that allows him to miss these games and not get paid. He's okay with that. Why are you mad if this were part of the initial agreement?

Are the Chiefs and fans being taken advantage of? Why? The organization entered into this agreement with CJ. If it didn't want to give him the option of missing games and not getting paid, it shouldn't have offered him this contract.

That's the exact argument you're making with Dexter. The guy signed a contract he probably didn't entirely understand and now is being disadvantaged because of it. You have no sympathy for that, but you feel like the Chiefs are being persecuted by CJ's actions?

Chris Jones has no contractual obligation to play for the Chiefs for the first 7 weeks to accrue a season's worth of employment. You similarly have no contractual obligation to go into work tomorrow and complete your job. It's at-will employment and he and you can choose to sleep in and just not get paid.

It's just a bit hypocritical to be so "I abide by the letter of the contract" with Dexter even though the guy was clearly being taken advantage of while castigating CJ because he's doing exactly what's allowed in his contract.

(Note: I'm not trying to argue that I like or support what CJ is doing, but I think it's pot-kettle-black to criticize Dexter as not living up to a contract when Chiefs fans don't appreciate that - as employers of CJ - the organization has given him the option to do exactly what he's doing right now.)

Hey dipshit....cj skipping out was not part of the contract. At will employment and a CONTRACT are not the same. Dexter was an adult when he signed his contract. It was a bad one...but tough shit. You sign, you are obligated.

[dlphg9]

Originally Posted by ku_jhawk23

Hey dipshit....cj skipping out was not part of the contract. At will employment and a CONTRACT are not the same. Dexter was an adult when he signed his contract. It was a bad one...but tough shit. You sign, you are obligated.

Hey dipshit, the agreement was against the law. Also, we have to stop with thinking it's fine for companies to take advantage of people. It's why this country has gone to shit.

CJ is well within his right to miss whatever he wants. He's clearly not breaching his contract, because if he was they could just get out of it. Dipshit.


**** I hate everything about you and your ilk.