NIL drama keeps getting testier for the NCAA every day. The legal showdown between Brendan Sorsby and the Cincinnati Bearcats has grown into a fight big enough to potentially change NIL’s future in collegiate sports. But it will ruin everything that the NCAA has strived for with regard to NIL through all these years.

Sorsby filed a Motion to Dismiss in court and asked Judge Michael Barrett in response to Cincinnati’s demand for $1 million in liquidated damages. The Bearcats lost the quarterback to Texas Tech via the portal this year in the middle of his two-season contract. That prompted Cincinnati to sue Sorsby for breaking the terms. But this case is one of the first real legal tests of these types of NIL agreements, especially after the House Settlement allowed schools to share revenue with players.

The now Red-Raiders QB argued that Cincinnati’s ‘NIL contract’ was just a guise, and that the money he got from Cincinnati as NIL was really payment for playing football. Sorsby said he was already paid $875,000 by his former program for these services. But since colleges ‘paying’ student-athletes would make them employees, Cincinnati treated the money as NIL. The QB also asserted that “in reality,” his “NIL rights have very little monetary value.” The contract only gave value to his NIL because it was “the only way the NCAA allows Cincinnati to pay him “for playing football.

After the House v. NCAA settlement in June 2025, schools were allowed to share up to $20.5 million per year directly with players. Still, this would still be termed as an ‘NIL payment.’ The NCAA has been trying to seek federal intervention to prevent student-athletes from acquiring the ’employed’ term. This would complicate the whole landscape in college sports, because labor laws will enter the fold. The SCORE Act, which tackled this problem for the NCAA, fell apart in Congress. But payment is something that some lawyers feel is a warranted right for these players, because many athletes are treated like employees.

For example, Cincinnati could even end the deal if Brendan Sorsby did not meet football-related requirements. He was also paid double during the season, but there was nothing when he stopped playing football. The QB also claimed that Cincinnati offered to ignore the $1 million if he chose to enter the 2026 NFL Draft instead of transferring. Sorsby also sees the sum as a “penalty” for transferring out.

This isn’t the first time a University has pulled this move. Duke did not just want compensation from Darian Mensah, but also tried to stop him from moving to Miami. Even Georgia tried to get $390k from Damon Wilson after he transferred. Schools sure spend a fortune on their players and want them to stick by them. But with cases like this, it only makes it clear that college athletes are practically employees, if they’re trying to seek money in ‘damages.’ Even though the wording is different, just because these are NIL contracts, the real situation is clear.

If the court rules in Brendan Sorsby’s favor, it will be a solid wake-up call for all the schools about their contract obligations. However, this is not the only trouble the QB is facing at the moment.

Brendan Sorsby’s future is under major threat

Sorsby was once seen as a future top NFL Draft player, but his career path has now become dark, out of the blue. NCAA investigators found that he had placed thousands of bets over four years. The situation became more serious when it was discovered that he had even bet on his own team while playing at Indiana in 2022. The NCAA has very strict rules, and betting on your own team can lead to a lifetime ban from college sports. With such a threat looming above Sorsby, there is little he can resort to as a Plan B.

This left him with very few options to continue playing and move forward in his football journey. Since Sorsby is likely no longer eligible to play college football, his main path to the NFL became the Supplemental Draft. This draft is meant for players who lose their college eligibility after the normal NFL Draft is already over. But this path has its own share of problems, because there is no guarantee that any team will choose him. And, the NFL hasn’t held a supplemental draft in two years.

Past examples showed that the NFL takes off-field issues seriously. One example is Terrelle Pryor, who entered the supplemental draft in 2011 after breaking NCAA rules. He was picked up by the Oakland Raiders, but had only one notable season in the league.

Sorsby’s future will be wasted if he is deemed ineligible, because there is no way of going back. He has currently enrolled himself in a treatment program for gambling addiction, but who knows how many teams will be interested in him in such a situation? Maybe if Sorsby can prove that his is a redemption story that deserves to be looked at, there can be some hope for him.