On February, 24th 2023, the NCAA made its first sanctions regarding NIL deals. The sanctions were placed after an NCAA investigation was conducted on the University of Miami’s Women’s basketball team, and found “impermissible contact” violations in recruiting of players.
The student athletes in question are Haley and Hanna Cavinder. The Cavinder twins were arguably the Hurricanes biggest signee’s of the 2022 recruitment class. Although the twins weren’t named specifically by name in the NCAA’s document, dinner with a notable Miami booster was at the center of attention.
In April of 2022 during the recruitment of the Cavinder twins, John Ruiz hosted the twins and their family at his Miami home and served them dinner. John Ruiz was named by On3as the NIL’s most impactful person of 2022. Ruiz is said to have spent $10 million on compensation for Miami Student athletes in just year one. Receiving a small portion of that $10 million dollars, are the Cavinder twins. Even though NIL deals have made paying College Athletes legal, the NCAA took its first stand in regulating these deals with these two parties.
After a negotiated deal, sanctions by the NCAA were handed down on the program on. Hurricanes Head Coach, Katie Meier served a 3 game suspension during the regular season, as well as the program being fined $5,000. The Cavinder twins and Ruiz suffered no penalties.
The decision leaves some former collegiate athletes questioning the NCAA on its timing. Brandon Godinez is a former Student Athlete at the University of Central Florida. Godinez believes the league has bigger fish to fry. “ There’s a lot of things that come into question on their approach”. “Didn’t Florida just have a kid that had a 100 million or whatever deal fall through"? Godinez is referring to the recent controversy surrounding, former Florida Gator Jaden Rashada. Rashada was the 7th ranked Quarterback in the class of 2023, and expected to be a key contributor for the Gators. After a 4 year, $13 million dollar deal fell through in Gainesville, both parties moved on without a peep from the NCAA.
The Hurricanes season recently came to a conclusion in the ACC tournament, in a 68-42 loss to Virginia Tech. Now heading into the off-season, it’ll be interesting to see if similar sanctions are to follow with other programs. Could we be seeing the beginning of the NCAA’s regulation of NIL?
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