Jan 20 update 1:40 PM Update (kind of) on Mensah

northvanole said:

Some have posted asking if Mensah is actually in the portal. It's hard to get a clear answer, but I have pieced together the following. Mensah filed his paperwork with Duke to enter the portal late Friday afternoon. That much has been confirmed. Duke has two business days to actually put the name in the portal. That appears to be Tuesday Jan. 21, which I think is also the first day of Miami's spring term. This is why there has been no reporting that officially states that Mensah is actually in the portal (I think we saw a similar situation with the Desir twins). Technically, a school is forbidden to prevent a player from entering the portal. The situation with UW and Demond Williams Jr was a bit different and interesting because the contract he signed with UW had a clause (from a B10 template) that forbade him to enter the portal during the duration of the contract. That is pretty direct language. And he tried to enter the portal three days after signing it. UW, with the approval of the B10, was going to sue Demond. A few days later, Demond returned to UW. In the Mensah case, there does not appear to be a similar clause. And I find the creation of the clause with Williams and UW very interesting because it contractually restricts the total freedom to enter the portal which seems to be the current way of doing things. Some may assert that the clause may not be enforceable in the current litigious environment. But Williams did indeed sign it, instead of demanding it be removed. I don't believe that Duke-Mensah had such a clause, instead it has what appears to be (drum roll please!) a GOR!. According to the reporting, Duke "owns" Mensah's GOR value for the duration of the contract....no matter where he plays. This is what started the rumors that Miami will just pay Duke for cancelling that "value"...but the value should be whatever Miami was going to pay Mensah. So Miami will end up paying twice for the NIL in order to pay Duke and Mensah. (if these facts and my analysis is correct). All I can really confirm is that there are some interesting contact law principles in play here. What we are seeing here is a clear attempt by certain schools (and the B10 apparently) to use contract law to limit what players can do, in the absence of enforceable regulations. Parties should be bound to the contracts they signed, unless there is some legal reason why the contract can be ruled to be null and void. Parties actions may matter here. Clearly, oral contracts are not worth the paper they are not written on. Mensah has a written contract, and although his comments in December that he was staying at Duke were not reduced to writing, they didn't have to be as he was merely asserting that he was sticking with the contract he signed. Does that matter here? I am not sure, and Duke is not giving any hints (yet) of what it is going to do. This can get more interesting. Let's say that the Miami package for Mensah is a total of $6M which includes $4M of NIL. Some (ill informed) posters on the Miami Board suggest that all they have to do is pay $6M from the rev share, and zero from NIL. That makes no sense as there are several Miami players that will be expecting seven figures from the cap (I think maybe around $22M next year). Hmmm.....all of a sudden, Miami AD Radacovich just stated that the cap is too low. Interesting. A lot of moving parts, and that is before we see how NIL-GO evaluates this. Whether you agree or have a different point of view, comments are requested as we navigate this interesting mess.

JohnnySack said:

Do you think this will go to court? What would be the exact legal grounds that Duke would have to sue for?

finisher1225 said:

That’s a lot of words for “He’s still a piece of ****”.

Boss B said:

Lawyer here. Yes to court. Breach of contract against Mensah and tortious interference with a contract against (presumably Miami) if they have evidence to suggest tampering.

Oceola123 said:

Wouldn't restrictions on entering the portal hang on whether the player is viewed as a contractor or employee? And if they are viewed as an employee at some point in the future that verbiage would not stand in right to work states. There are so many facets to these contracts.

Grady3Nole said:

ACC needs to step in and squash this.

northvanole said:

It was already pretty common knowledge well before last week that Mensah signed a two year contract with Duke, so it does not seem likely that anyone can assert they had no knowledge of the contract and its terms. Mensah made a public comment in December that he was staying with Duke, and he only changed his mind after Miami whiffed on some other QB's. Even if Miami had no knowledge of any of the clauses, Mensah did. But it's highly unlikely that Miami had no knowledge as they had to know "the number" it would take to buy his services.

JohnnySack said:

Do you think this will go to court? What would be the exact legal grounds that Duke would have to sue for?

northvanole said:

Some have posted asking if Mensah is actually in the portal. It's hard to get a clear answer, but I have pieced together the following. Mensah filed his paperwork with Duke to enter the portal late Friday afternoon. That much has been confirmed. Duke has two business days to actually put the name in the portal. That appears to be Tuesday Jan. 21, which I think is also the first day of Miami's spring term. This is why there has been no reporting that officially states that Mensah is actually in the portal (I think we saw a similar situation with the Desir twins). Technically, a school is forbidden to prevent a player from entering the portal. The situation with UW and Demond Williams Jr was a bit different and interesting because the contract he signed with UW had a clause (from a B10 template) that forbade him to enter the portal during the duration of the contract. That is pretty direct language. And he tried to enter the portal three days after signing it. UW, with the approval of the B10, was going to sue Demond. A few days later, Demond returned to UW. In the Mensah case, there does not appear to be a similar clause. And I find the creation of the clause with Williams and UW very interesting because it contractually restricts the total freedom to enter the portal which seems to be the current way of doing things. Some may assert that the clause may not be enforceable in the current litigious environment. But Williams did indeed sign it, instead of demanding it be removed. I don't believe that Duke-Mensah had such a clause, instead it has what appears to be (drum roll please!) a GOR!. According to the reporting, Duke "owns" Mensah's GOR value for the duration of the contract....no matter where he plays. This is what started the rumors that Miami will just pay Duke for cancelling that "value"...but the value should be whatever Miami was going to pay Mensah. So Miami will end up paying twice for the NIL in order to pay Duke and Mensah. (if these facts and my analysis is correct). All I can really confirm is that there are some interesting contact law principles in play here. What we are seeing here is a clear attempt by certain schools (and the B10 apparently) to use contract law to limit what players can do, in the absence of enforceable regulations. Parties should be bound to the contracts they signed, unless there is some legal reason why the contract can be ruled to be null and void. Parties actions may matter here. Clearly, oral contracts are not worth the paper they are not written on. Mensah has a written contract, and although his comments in December that he was staying at Duke were not reduced to writing, they didn't have to be as he was merely asserting that he was sticking with the contract he signed. Does that matter here? I am not sure, and Duke is not giving any hints (yet) of what it is going to do. This can get more interesting. Let's say that the Miami package for Mensah is a total of $6M which includes $4M of NIL. Some (ill informed) posters on the Miami Board suggest that all they have to do is pay $6M from the rev share, and zero from NIL. That makes no sense as there are several Miami players that will be expecting seven figures from the cap (I think maybe around $22M next year). Hmmm.....all of a sudden, Miami AD Radacovich just stated that the cap is too low. Interesting. A lot of moving parts, and that is before we see how NIL-GO evaluates this. Whether you agree or have a different point of view, comments are requested as we navigate this interesting mess.

Grady3Nole said:

ACC needs to step in and squash this.

MXHUDSO said:

So, is there "tampering" when one agent reaches out to another agent? When it's not someone on the coaching staff reaching out directly to a player?

MXHUDSO said:

So, is there "tampering" when one agent reaches out to another agent? When it's not someone on the coaching staff reaching out directly to a player?

northvanole said:

Some have posted asking if Mensah is actually in the portal. It's hard to get a clear answer, but I have pieced together the following. Mensah filed his paperwork with Duke to enter the portal late Friday afternoon. That much has been confirmed. Duke has two business days to actually put the name in the portal. That appears to be Tuesday Jan. 21, which I think is also the first day of Miami's spring term. This is why there has been no reporting that officially states that Mensah is actually in the portal (I think we saw a similar situation with the Desir twins). Technically, a school is forbidden to prevent a player from entering the portal. The situation with UW and Demond Williams Jr was a bit different and interesting because the contract he signed with UW had a clause (from a B10 template) that forbade him to enter the portal during the duration of the contract. That is pretty direct language. And he tried to enter the portal three days after signing it. UW, with the approval of the B10, was going to sue Demond. A few days later, Demond returned to UW. In the Mensah case, there does not appear to be a similar clause. And I find the creation of the clause with Williams and UW very interesting because it contractually restricts the total freedom to enter the portal which seems to be the current way of doing things. Some may assert that the clause may not be enforceable in the current litigious environment. But Williams did indeed sign it, instead of demanding it be removed. I don't believe that Duke-Mensah had such a clause, instead it has what appears to be (drum roll please!) a GOR!. According to the reporting, Duke "owns" Mensah's GOR value for the duration of the contract....no matter where he plays. This is what started the rumors that Miami will just pay Duke for cancelling that "value"...but the value should be whatever Miami was going to pay Mensah. So Miami will end up paying twice for the NIL in order to pay Duke and Mensah. (if these facts and my analysis is correct). All I can really confirm is that there are some interesting contact law principles in play here. What we are seeing here is a clear attempt by certain schools (and the B10 apparently) to use contract law to limit what players can do, in the absence of enforceable regulations. Parties should be bound to the contracts they signed, unless there is some legal reason why the contract can be ruled to be null and void. Parties actions may matter here. Clearly, oral contracts are not worth the paper they are not written on. Mensah has a written contract, and although his comments in December that he was staying at Duke were not reduced to writing, they didn't have to be as he was merely asserting that he was sticking with the contract he signed. Does that matter here? I am not sure, and Duke is not giving any hints (yet) of what it is going to do. This can get more interesting. Let's say that the Miami package for Mensah is a total of $6M which includes $4M of NIL. Some (ill informed) posters on the Miami Board suggest that all they have to do is pay $6M from the rev share, and zero from NIL. That makes no sense as there are several Miami players that will be expecting seven figures from the cap (I think maybe around $22M next year). Hmmm.....all of a sudden, Miami AD Radacovich just stated that the cap is too low. Interesting. A lot of moving parts, and that is before we see how NIL-GO evaluates this. Whether you agree or have a different point of view, comments are requested as we navigate this interesting mess.

Boss B said:

Lawyer here. Yes to court. Breach of contract against Mensah and tortious interference with a contract against (presumably Miami) if they have evidence to suggest tampering.

QuaZ2002_rivals said:

Duke should make this as ugly as possible. They have deeper pockets than Miami and the court of public opinion is firmly in their corner. Of course if the ACC had any balls they would chime in on this as well considering these are two ACC schools.

finisher1225 said:

I agree. If he signs with scUM the Dukies should file as many injunctions, stays, and delays as possible no matter how ridiculous to prevent him from playing. They should allege malicious intent because they beat them in the ACCCG and assign some ridiculous number to the suite. It would also be great to see them march the actual stadium banner into court in front of scUM as an exhibit. None of this is likely but it sure would be fun.